What Happens to Time, When You Live Life on “Airplane Mode”

I must thank my trainer Dave Junop for the title of this offering. During one of our workouts, we were discussing this article and how I wanted to unpack the complex relevance of time in fostering a life of purpose, social inclusion and happiness. During the course our discussions, he observed since Covid, ever more people seem to live their lives on “airplane mode.” I abruptly stopped what we were doing, and asked him to explain? He said that when you put your phone on Airplane mode, you can do many of the internal things on the device but essentially remove yourself from the outside world. He continued by saying that in present day society, it is easier and more comfortable for many to choose interpersonal isolation over the effort required to physically participate socially in the world around them. The somber insight and correctness of his comments hit me like a hammer.

If you have been following my writing over the past 12 months, you know that I have tried to provide practical information designed to somewhat challenge traditional thought and approaches to health and wellness. My intent was not to discredit or tear down accepted the provision of clinical services, but rather broaden perspective, and in doing so help you make more constructive life decisions that will serve to empower. This final offering is I believe, the most important. Acknowledging its relevance to all facets of existence, I want to begin by sharing with you some thoughts on “time”, that amorphous yet unrelenting measure of life. We all acknowledge it, calculate it, live by it, and structure our lives around it. It is the one inescapable element of existence that both dictates and limits all facets of how we experience the world around us. We use is and abuse it, hate it and love it, fear it and embrace it. You can’t see it or feel it, but it is as real as the chair you are sitting on reading this article. This is straightforward stuff, but let me pose a more salient question: Do you understand it? 

I realize that at first blush this sounds absurd, but is it? I would suggest that it would be difficult to find anything more precious, especially the deeper we go down that rabbit hole called life. If you were to ask a teenager engaging with friends or an elderly person on their death bed the meaning of time, I assure you their response would be at different ends of the spectrum. For the young it is a seemingly endless commodity with little or no meaning or accountability beyond the clock, and for the other, a fraying thread to the present, where every second is fiercely held onto. Saint Augustine once said:” What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.” It is a conundrum. Time is not only the fourth dimension, but also, I believe, it is life itself. Think about it, everything from the “great bang” forward has in one way or another reflected what we refer to as time. Nothing in life has meaning without it. In fact, physicists state that if there was a way to stop time, theory dictates that everything would not just stop but instantly cease to exist. It is perhaps the most precious, yet wasted resource, and nowhere in nature is that more prevalent than with humans. The three measures of time, the past, the present and the future, are related but uniquely distinct. Where this becomes particularly interesting is that as far as science can calculate, man is the only creature who can actively intellectually engage with intent in all three components of time. We can vividly recall the past, experience the present and colourfully anticipate the future. Although we can choose to intellectually exist in all three components of time, the only one that is real, is what is referred to as the “now”. It is the present, and what we do in this substate of time that gives form, experience, meaning, and growth to our tenure on this planet. This is the exclusive setting from which to tangibly experience, create, participate or emotionally engage, and is a direct reflection of how we intellectually process the world we live in…our reality. 

So, what is the “present”? This idea of living in the “now” is a question that has sparked furious debate among the intelligentsia since the beginning of time and continues to stimulate thoughtful speculation among self-help gurus, lifestyle coaches, existentialists, psychiatrists and philosophers.

According to the Oxford Languages Dictionary definition, “now” means “at the present time or moment.” I thought to myself that this definition, although crisp, is far too simplistic when applied to the complexity of living. I took a slightly deeper dive and asked for the definition of “present time”. Oxford Languages Dictionary came back: “relating to the current period of time.” Merriam-Webster defined it as, “the period of time that is occurring right now.” I can sense a building frustration as I am sure you are wondering, “WTF is the point?” 

The drive here is this: If “now” is present-time, and “present-time” is the period that is occurring right now and if the authorities on successful living are right in asserting that a key to a fulfilling life is “being present and living in the now”, why do so many of us choose to waste life by existing in “airplane mode”. Look around for a moment and it becomes hard to deny that an ever-diminishing number of us live a truly participatory existence, engaged in all or at least most facets of their world?  From an evolutionary standpoint, until recently, “the now” was the only place we could live, as survival, for the lion’s share of our tenure on the planet was predicated upon moment-to-moment awareness. If one failed in that end, the consequences were often terminal. Survival was largely instinctual and reactive, not unlike most other life forms. Let me explain: 

If animals are hungry, they forage, if tired they sleep, threatened they respond either towards or away from the danger. Action is automatic or viscerally initiated. For example, if a cat feels hunger, it will instinctively initiate the hunting process. It does not sit down and think about what it is going to do, phone a friend, google or logically decide what prey would be best for dinner tonight. It viscerally draws upon past successful hunting experiences and moves in the direction of most engrained success. There is no fretting over the process and more importantly the animal does not become emotionally involved in either the success or failure of the activity. If it finds a mouse, chases it and somehow the mouse escapes, the cat doesn’t go into a funk and beat itself up for not catching the mouse. It methodically carries on the hunt, or curls up in a comfortable place, preens for a moment and goes to sleep. This behaviour is essentially the same for all animals except man. Somewhere back in time, humans were separated from other life forms when our ability to manipulate conscious thought occurred. What I mean by this is, whether by divine intervention or some freak accident of nature, mankind became endowed with the ability to remember the past with clarity and secondly, creatively future project scenarios through the workings of a vivid imagination. 

In essence this meant that based upon accumulated experience, we could learn the lessons necessary for survival and conversely plan courses of action and activity to protect and move humans forward along the evolutionary chain. It was a huge leg-up on all the other competitive species, but it came with a price. With this gift, we could not only learn with effectiveness, and graphically project various paths of direction, now we could also worry incessantly, dwell on past mistakes, and project our fears and biases on future activity. This, often serving to cloud decision making, while crippling or undermining potential growth and happiness. To digress just a bit, it may surprise you to know, that there is some compelling evidence to support the dictum that being negative and morose are largely the dominant innate hallmarks of human attitudinal behaviour. These are essentially survival traits which allowed us to successfully evolve through an often-intuitive ability assess danger and prepare for any necessary flight or fight eventuality. The downside is that embedded sullenness did little and in some cases nothing to spark happiness, contentment, hope or the ambrosia of enthusiasm needed to fashion a satisfying and propitious life. As the American existentialist Henry David Thoreau correctly observed:” The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Unfortunately, that statement is perhaps truer today than it was when written 150 years ago. It is absurd that so many of us appear to take an almost perverse pleasure in seeing the glass half empty.  I have yet to see a tombstone emblazoned with the phrase: “He died happy”. It is a sad testament to this almost perverse twist of human nature, when the first thought that goes through your mind when you observe someone who appearing genuinely enthused and content with their life is: “The meds must be working.” The bizarre fact here is “you may be right.” A 2022 Statistics Canada mental health and access to care survey noted that the prevalence of mood disorders like major depressive episodes and generalized anxiety disorders have doubled over the last decade.”

Unpacking the severity of this a little further, according to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, in any given year, 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental illness, and by the time they reach 40 years of age, 1 in 2 have – or have had – a mental illness. This is an inexcusable social debacle. I am not trying to downplay the broad causation of mental health issues but, could at least part of this be a direct reflection of our collective failure to appreciate and participate with effectiveness in this thing we call time? There is no doubt there is a lot in this world to be negative about. It’s a fact that with participation in social media, we can not only broadcast our own misery, but we get to share in everyone else’s. There is little in any of the various forms of media out there to foster sanity, much less happiness or self-worth. 

I think at birth we should be fitted with a clock showing the predicted duration of our lifespan so an appropriate sense of urgency could be generated and maintained. It might just keep top of mind the fact that our presence on this earthly plain is finite, and that our time here has purpose and is not some fluke mistake. To make it better, every time one generates two negative thoughts in a row, you get a little shock in the butt. The more that negativity is repeated, the stronger the jolt. I think I’m on to something! In seriousness, let me broaden this out a bit further.

Here in the western world, we find ourselves in an environment of enormous distrust, turmoil and unrest. I would suggest that there are innumerable factors at play responsible for the societal fragmentation we are experiencing, but one that is most overlooked is our collective inability to appreciate “the true magnificence of silently living without distraction in the moment.” The famous French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Blaise Pascal once said: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," The average person is so bombarded with distraction that they rarely if ever take the time to experience with gratitude the splendour of the world we live in. During the average persons day, the beauty of a sunset, scent of a rose, laughter of a child or call of a songbird never enter their consciousness, because their thoughts are either mired in the sludge of past failures and misfortunes, the delusions and fantasies of the future, or the mindless barrage of synthesized distraction found in virtually every pocket or purse. The stress of living in this time of volatile instability has crushed many. Insanity is everywhere. The burden associated with social participation in, or the governance of, “the tribe,” (the creation of social order with purpose) has become overwhelmingly bewildering and mesmerizingly complicated, making “opting out of life” the most attractive of options. The problem here is that the ever-relentless shapeshifter we call time, keeps eroding your life away and with it the potential for happiness and life-satisfaction. The often-simple things that should keep us grounded to the world, reminding us that we are part of the global community called life are often lost or ignored.  We so often choose to orphan the present, with all it’s subtle splendor, to instead flirt with:

1. The three calamities of the past, ---regret, anger and remorse, 

2. The imaginary pretenders of the future, or  

3. Even worse, the pathetic ambivalence derived from electing to abandon creative intelligence in favour of the more convenient imposters contained within the capture and addiction of social media, or other online distraction. 

It is almost refreshing to find someone who functionally operates in the present. It has become far too easy to live life distracted. Increasingly, people go through the motions of living, with little acknowledgement, regard for, or engagement in the world around them. This failure to thrive is clearly evidenced in the catastrophic rise in illness and disability at all stages of life in western society. If not already, we will soon be the sickest species on the planet. Living with illness was never the intended path for human existence, but sadly, it appears that we are being conditioned to believe that it is. If you disagree, look around you at the volume of media feeds on disease, or ads for medications. As much as I am all in on thought management and personal accountability, what if there may be bigger players at work complicating the picture. I think in many ways we are subliminally being prepared for illness. Worse, due to our collective ambivalence, we are being insidiously programed not to question or even to think. In fact, as you look around at various recent and proposed judicial and legislative changes impacting human rights. As preposterous as it may sound, it appears that thinking of any sort may soon become a crime in and of itself. We have been so primed to observe rather than participate, to acquiesce rather than challenge, and most horrifically, to forfeit our freedoms and rights in favour of what we have been led to believe is safe and comfortable, that we have intellectually degraded the species and with that our ultimate potential for survival as a race. Over the past fifty or so years, through the systemic breakdown and lack of effective oversight in our societal institutions for governance, protection, education, healthcare and commerce, the democratic experience as it was intended (stewardship for the good of the majority) is on the brink of collapse. We are being conditioned to fear freedom as dangerous, and the challenge of divergent thought, as evil. The deviance of it all has penetrated so deeply into our collective psyche that violent attacks by political extremists with mercenary agendas are not just tolerated, but ambivalently disregarded due to the implied and direct potential for personal persecution and/or social isolation. We are being encouraged to abandon any sense of community… divide and conquer!

Take a moment, examine your life and those of your loved ones. Do they radiate promise and fulfillment? Do you look around you with a sense of gratitude and hopeful anticipation, or are fear and despair what colours your landscape? Historically, the primary societal innovation, designed to protect and empower the collective called the tribe, has now in many ways become the herd. Keep your head down, move when told, stay in your lane, don’t make waves and never dare to colour outside the lines. This is not science fiction, it is reality, and it scares me to death when I think of where this may ultimately be leading. All the great societal shifts throughout history have happened when good people finally decided that they had enough of the inequity, persecution, prejudice, avarice and mismanagement of a world without absolute rules and equitable accountabilities. 

Do not drink the Kool Aid! We need to hold our governing institutions feet to the fire and demand non-privileged oversight in all areas, but especially healthcare, education, commerce, insurance, banking and the provision of life’s staples. Most importantly we must remember what it is like to be human, to be part of a community where personal and collective agendas can be fairly expressed and debated but ultimately held up against the righteous goals and wellbeing of the majority prior to their ethical implementation, or reasoned disregard. For us to survive as a species much less a nation we must take back at least a measure of control, and that can only happen by first accepting that you are ultimately responsible for you. Your life, and the days it is measured by are the only palate from which you can fashion a legacy for creative good to hand with pride to those who follow. This in turn means appreciating that time is the clay you possess to create with and then using it with prudence to sculpt the consummate masterpiece, a life well lived. There is a wonderful Zen saying: “If a man is right, his world will be right.” Make 2026 the year you fully realize your divine magnificence.

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About the Author: Dr. POOLEY has been in practice for over 46 years, is a former champion bodybuilder and author of the book the Un-Diet Diet.