A quote from a book called How to Have a Life written by Seneca and presented by James S Romm states “We speak of “quality time” but time well used actually has greater quantity.” Seneca was a philosopher, statesman, and playwright of Ancient Rome. He was famously known for his moral essays and playwrights of Greek tragedies. I took a liking to this book and that was one of the quotes that I highlighted. This quote explains if we acted on creating quality time instead of only speaking of it, we’d have more quantity in our lives. Hegal speaks about how we can know immediate things because we can sense them with our five senses. Everyone understands we have a certain amount of time on earth. I’m confident we’ve all experienced that same frightening realization around the age of 10 that one day we and everyone we love are going to die. We also know certain moments may seem to move slower, faster, and even extremely fast, and because of this most people’s perception of life is “I don’t have enough time”. Followed by an immediate thought of “I should’ve spent more quality time with the people and things I love”.
This brings me to my next statement from Hegel “Likewise we ourselves have to conduct ourselves immediately, or receptively.” Hegal says along with perceiving we should also be receptive to what we’re perceiving. We tend to waste a lot of time knowing we are given a certain amount of time. If we take a moment to contemplate all the times we decided to idly watch TV, go zombie on phones, or give almost all our time to work or school (Unless that’s what you’ve chosen for yourself and you’re satisfied), that time cannot be given back, however, the reaction is “there’s not enough time” when that’s simply not true. If we were receptive to having a certain amount of time we would act on it and surely use our time more wisely.
Lastly, Hegel expresses “We, therefore, are to alter nothing in the object as it presents itself,” we should not alter or change what we perceive to fit our own perception. Instead, we should be able to understand what we’re perceiving and accept it as it’s illustrated through our five senses. If we were to follow Hegal’s advice, instead of changing the perception to we don’t have enough time we could understand that we are given a certain amount of time and now it’s on ourselves to be receptive to that knowing and act on it.
Your quote from Seneca definitely correlates strongly with Hegel’s. They’re both arguing the same thing in slightly different forms, that our perception of time will feel very warped in the context of a “lifetime”. I especially liked how you then provided a sort of solution to this conflict through Hegel’s reasoning at the end–that we must remain receptive and present (essentially). I’ve always had a hard time understanding Seneca’s writings which is why I was so excited to see someone use something he’s said and actually explain it. In my opinion, the biggest takeaway from your passage is how people should immerse themselves in their immediate senses without trying to manipulate the flow of time.