The Two Kinds of Time: Further Reflections on Extraordinary Time, Bad Acute
My quote from Virginia Price, “The quintessential man who has Type A Behavior (TAB) hears about his father’s death in the morning and then goes into the office to get things straight before departing” struck two kinds of notes. Both notes are important and bear more explication on my part.
The first “note” actually came from my memory. I was an active group leader for the Meyer Friedman Institute in San Francisco for close to fifteen years. I was a close personal friend to Dr. Friedman for the last ten years of his life. But I learned the vast majority of my knowledge of TAB at Dr. Price’s knee. She taught our monthly training sessions for over five years and I “sat in” on one of her groups for over fifteen years. When I was beginning at the Institute, they told me to sit in on one of her groups for “awhile” in order to learn the method. They never defined “awhile!”
I learned the above quote during one of those sessions. What I remember most is the push back she received from some of the members. I was a bit amazed, but I was new to the game. They were making all sorts of rationalizations about how it would be appropriate to take care of practical matters first. They missed the point.
I was to learn that men with TAB are really good at missing the point, especially when it came to the Emotional World (EW). One even argued that he didn’t even like his father very much so what was the deal? As anyone knows, not all grief is the same. That wasn’t the point. The point was that so many folks have an automatic response that says “OK, back to business,” no matter the gravity of the event.
As I saw her do, dozens of times, she patiently explained what she wanted to teach these very good, but often concrete, men. Amazingly, she never called them “knuckleheads” in all the years I observed. Actually, I never once saw her become even remotely irritated.
Dr. Price’s example is poignant because she was referring to the loss of anyone who is precious, whether anticipated or caught unawares. She was making the point that the news would be heartbreaking to the receiver. Nevertheless, driven by TAB and its mandate not to feel one’s own tender feelings or needs, that person would behave as if it was Ordinary Time (OT). This would not represent a conscious choice but would reflect a very long habit trail of self-denial and unawareness of one’s own needs or their vital role to others in the EW.
The second note was sounded by someone who had read the earlier post on the Two Kinds of Time. This was the other side of the coin. Reading it, she became worried that her family might be doing the process “wrong” because of decisions they had made in the face of ET, bad- acute. The situation involved the death of her father-in-law, a beloved father and grandfather. Even though the elderly man was ninety, it was a devastating loss made even more so because the granddaughter was far off in school. They made the decision for her not to come home, even though she was longing to, because of Covid-19 concerns and travel restrictions.
After agonizing conversations with her mom, the granddaughter had elected to attend her classes even though in mourning. The mother wondered if this was “OK” given what she had read in the article. She also mentioned that her husband was hard at work on an obituary for his dad and was finding it very comforting. Was that “OK?”
In both instances, I reassured her that she and her family were not doing it “wrong.” They had done the appropriate shift. There was no denial in their actions or in their emotions. Life turned on its edge for them in this loss and they recognized it and felt fully the pain of the transition into a time they wished not to be in.
It caused me to remember my own life in 1957 when my mother met me at the door to our home with tears in her eyes to tell me that her father, my beloved grandfather, had suddenly and unexpectedly passed away that afternoon. My family packed the car and, later that evening, we were headed “up home,” a journey of one hundred thirty twisty miles through the mountains of West Virginia.
Everyone came. Well, everyone except for my older cousin, Basil, who was on a two-week trip in Europe. It was not possible for him to come home, travel being such as it was in that time. He did not do ET “incorrectly” by not rushing home. He couldn’t. And he would have been crushed. He adored our grandfather, who had also been a father for him, his own father having died at the Battle of the Bulge. On hearing that news, he would have moved immediately into ET and I only hope he was able to receive the care he needed being so far away and so broken-hearted.
It is not a matter of doing a thing correctly. There is not a formula to follow. It is the ability to recognize what kind of time is present and to not be in denial. It is just as much an act of denial for a person afflicted with TAB to be in a state of fury over some small inconvenience and not realize that he is living in a moment of Ordinary Time (OT). Remember, our major task in OT is to enjoy our lives. Recognizing that OT is present means realizing that we are in possession of what is most precious to us, with no guarantee that that will be true ten minutes from now.
It is crucial to be obedient to the time we find ourselves in. It is largely, maybe entirely, outside of our control. It is not to trivialize that someone can be legitimately upset over some inconvenience or disappointment. It is an act of perspective (one of the five things we are to practice in OT) to remember that inconvenience is not suffering or an indication that our lives have taken a major negative turn. We can ask ourselves on the way to our homes, “Is the inconvenience I experienced today a good reason to remove the feelings of affection, of warmth, or security from my home?” The answer is, “Of course not.”
Our task in OT is to enjoy our lives and not be diverted from this important duty by trivial events. (The functional definition of trivial is “anything we won’t remember five years from now.”) It is an important duty, just as it is paramount to do the duties inherent in ET, whether ET good or ET bad. It is about obedience.
In telling someone recently I was going to email the paper on the Two Kinds of Time to him, he asked me to explain the concepts. As I was going through the material, I used the above quote from Dr. Price about the Type A man and his father’s death. This man became very quiet. Then he said, “When my father was dying in the Midwest, I felt no urgency to go. I busied myself with unimportant activities. Finally after waiting two days, I decided to fly home. At the airport, I received a call from my brother that my dad had just died.”
When I was in my first year of seminary, my mother called me early on a Wednesday evening. She told me my aunt, Harriet, was dying of her lung cancer that had recurred. I asked my mother if she thought Harriet would live until the weekend. Having no basis for her answer, my mother thought she probably would. I called the large church where I was doing an internship to ask if I could miss the Sunday service. “But we have already printed the Sunday bulletin.” I insisted I would not be there. They were not happy. That made it very hard.
And then I went to class the next day with intention of rushing home on Friday, a four-hour journey. The next evening, late, my mother called to tell me my aunt had just passed away. She had been clear and lucid until just before slipping away. I had waited, not understanding the imperative of the moment. I needed to have packed my car that night, not asking anyone’s permission, and gone. Had I known about ET and its imperatives, I would have been obedient. I just didn’t know.
This was not just any garden-variety aunt or uncle, someone you might see twice a year at the holidays. She was single and had dinner in our home with us every night of the week from the time I was in third grade. When it was discovered I was not able to read in fourth grade, she spent time with me every evening sitting on the couch together, teaching me how to read. She adored me more warmly than anyone else in my family. As I am writing this to you, I can see her in a family picture that sits on the front of my desk. She is standing in this informal family portrait on the front porch of her childhood home in Hillsboro, WV.
I lost the gift of her final words, just as the man mentioned earlier lost the opportunity of his father’s final words, perhaps even his blessing. And there would have been words from her. Being true to her own upbringing and culture, she would have probably said something like, “Oh, honey, I hope you didn’t take time away from school to come.” But she would have taken my hand in such a way to give me the other message, “Thank you and I love you.” I missed that. I didn’t know.
Years later, long before I learned the TAB material, another beloved person, my step-father-in-law was dying at Stanford Hospital. Again, it was not clear how long he would live, only that he would not come out of the hospital. I asked the young intern who was tending him, “Do you think he will live through the weekend?” He demurred saying only that it was possible as we looked at his x-rays together, as if I could understand anything from that. I had a workshop to conduct on Friday through Sunday. It seemed very important. I was calculating whether I could keep my commitment and still “get back in time.” I know, crazy thinking, but I didn’t know.
At some point in this process, I remembered my Aunt Harriet and my own needs and the needs of my wife and my mother-in-law. It didn’t happen this way, but it was as if she “whispered” to me to remind me. I canceled the workshop. I stayed. I have priceless memories from my last hour with him in all of his irascible glory. I didn’t miss it. I didn’t miss his final wink to me as I was laughing at his final outrageous behavior. I would have, but I had learned something from the earlier heartbreak. This was the gift of being “obedient” to the kind of time I was in and not resisting.
This is all to say that we do not have control over the kind of time that has appeared. Just because we are able to find something trivial to be frenzied about in OT, it does not mean that ET is present. We can’t make the lives of our loved ones or our own life endangered if they aren’t. It doesn’t matter how good our argument is for being upset and overly strenuous. ET is not there if it is not there.
In like manner our calmness, our manner that says, “nothing is wrong,” or our preoccupation with things only having to do with the Practical World (PW) does not banish the ET when it is present in its bad form. We can rationalize to our loved ones later why it was so important to make that call about stocks before walking a daughter down the isle, but the presence of ET good means that that will be a memory frozen in her mind forever. It will represent not just that moment, but hundreds of lesser moments like it when we were called upon to be present in the joy of a moment and felt pulled away by “more important things.”
We need guidelines to handle the challenge of time and to help us correct longstanding habits. The big issues are recognition and obedience. I am told that the painter Norman Rockwell, famous for his warm and folksy scenes of life in America, would only allow his own family a few hours to be with him on Christmas morning before leaving and returning to his barn to paint. He did not know the difference between OT and ET. He could clearly paint the Emotional World (EW). It’s not clear he could live in it in present time or enjoy it.
Here are three guidelines to aid in being functionally conscious in our relationship to time:
Be willing and able to identify the kind of time that is present: OT or ET.
Be willing and able to switch into the time that is present: OT or ET.
Be willing and able to obey the dictates of the time that is present: OT or ET.
There are gifts to be had in this process of identifying, switching, and obeying. After all, the vast majority of our lives are spent in OT where the major task is to enjoy our lives and the lives of others. If we obey, we are not to be upset over things that are not of lasting worth. We are to be present in this time with all of its imperfections and mishaps and consciously enjoy the gift of it, thereby cementing this skill and creating lasting memories of the goodness of life.
Having a storehouse of these memories of the goodness of life will cause us to be very careful when we are in ET good, because we will want to help others, and ourselves, create good memories. We will put these in our storehouse of joy so that it will be available in another time. Remember and be guided by the old saying, “If you want to have a happy life, you must have happy days.”
That other time is when ET bad, both acute and chronic makes its appearance. By being obedient, we can switch into this time and be faithful to its dictates, remembering that unexpected good can come from this time. It is more than hard to lose someone you love, or to be told you are very ill or someone you love is ill. The pain that can come with ET is often overwhelming.
Being present and conscious in ET bad is as awful as any task in life, but there are also memories that can come from its darkness that can become powerful reminders of our resilience. This “gain” can only happen paradoxically if we allow ourselves to feel completely the experience of being lost and hopeless.
It is in this suffering that we know we are not immune to life, but subject to it in all its guises. Emerging from this suffering, forever altered, we know something of ourselves that we cannot otherwise know. We can join with all the others in the present and before us who can say in Macneile Dixon’s words, “We have not had something (life) for nothing……..(and now) nothing can any longer intimidate us.”
This knowledge of our resilience is the best underpinning for a durable sense of self-esteem. Instead of seeking with fervid effort to control the future, we know that we can handle whatever difficulties come to us. In the poem The Nectar of Pain, Najwa Zebian wrote:
Some kinds of Sadness
Don’t leave us,
Not because we want
To be sad,
But because we want
To keep reminding
Our souls
Of how brave they were
To overcome such
Pain.
I was sitting with my best friend from seminary a few days before he died. In that moment, he was basically a quadriplegic, crippled by the multiple sclerosis that had stolen his career as both a minister and a Formula One race car driver. (You read correctly. He was sponsored by Quaker State Oil, as the “Racing Rev.”) At his request, I had flown to the east coast to be with him. I had not hesitated. As we were sitting there on a Saturday evening, I helped him eat a little salmon and steak I had grilled. I cut it in tiny pieces. He had wanted to drink some scotch with me, so I poured a small amount into his iced tea and held the straw so he could drink the diluted mix.
Later that evening he said, “Well, look at this. Here I am sitting here on a Saturday night with my old friend Johnny McNeel, eating steak, eating salmon, and drinking scotch,” all of which was technically true. Then he said, “There is no place in the world I would rather be.” I looked at him quizzically. “It’s true,” he said. A week later he died. His name was Tommy. He was fifty-seven.
It is difficult to be obedient to time. It is excruciating to go into ET bad-acute. The impulse to deny it is palpable and understandable. On the other hand, if you can identify it, allow yourself to switch into it, and obey its dictates, you might find yourself at the bedside of an Aunt Harriet, with amber gold eyes looking at you, while she says to you how much she loves you just before her light goes out.
Or you could be at the office sorting paper clips.