The March of Time

 

Mikhail Epstein

 

Each place on earth has its own way of experiencing time. In Russia time flows differently than anywhere else in the world: in Russia time drags on and on, as it does for an insomniac lying in bed with arms and legs immobile while the head, burning with agitation, is conscious of its tormenting repose. "Then it is for me the gloom and quiet breed / Long hours of agonized prostration": apparently, Pushkin wrote these lines not only about himself but about an entire country's insomnia; a nation which, although tightly swaddled in a snowy blanket, has one of Petersburg's white nights shining on the headboard. Not to be able to sleep, not to be able to wake: this duality defines Russia's fate, its eternally painful experience of time. If only Russia had been able to fall asleep, then time would have passed as it does in oriental countries: unnoticed, where centuries may elapse without a single drop of change spilling from time's vessel. If Russia had been able to awaken, then time would have sped forward with the lively step of day, with all its hustle and bustle, and the experience of its duration would have been reduced.

However, there is nothing more tormenting than insomnia, the "inertia of night," when the body rests but the mind remains vigilant, each moment stretching into infinity. For the experience of time is a result of the relationship between two velocities: the velocity of consciousness and the velocity of existence. In the waking state, consciousness flows parallel to existence, is in step with it, and for this reason time takes on a defined magnitude, which is larger or smaller depending on the case. The more action takes place in a moment  of consciosness, the faster time flows, the more consciousness in a moment [per unit] of action, the slower [instead of: The more action operates on the unity of consciousness the faster time flows, the more consciousness on action the slower.]   For someone hurrying somewhere time flies headlong; for someone waiting time is painfully lengthened. Sleep and insomnia are the two boundaries of this relationship. In sleep the conscious mind ceases to operate, which is why time is, for all intents and purposes, not perceived. In insomnia the opposite obtains: consciousness alone operates, which is why time stretches into infinity. This is how time is experienced in Russia: a wearying infinity, which is nothing like pure repose, but rather restlessness and torment, the tormenting attempt to raise oneself up and throw off the torpor, to speed time toward some positive act.

This is why Russia longs so mightily for history: for Russia, it is as if history were unable to penetrate its snowy borders, as if everything occurred elsewhere, on the western side of the world. Yet when history does finally visit Russia, as it has explosively done under Peter the Great, Lenin, and during the the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era, its velocity does not seem to suit Russia either; rather it immediately gives rise to a bout of sleepiness, the desire to stop in place and "sleep eternally." This is because time, in its very essence, implies a turning: time must turn and we must turn with it; but souls habituated to the "inertia of night" can not long stand such turning.[1]

This constant back-and-forth between waking and sleep and back again creates a condition of troubled sleep, that is to say a state of insomnia with its infinite surplus of time, which even the most patient soul can not endure.

America, from the Russian perspective, is seen as the center of historical existence. This error is a result of a narrowly geographical perspective. Russia, viewing history in a westerly direction, toward Europe, transfers it, by the law of widening perspective, to its most western point, America. Yet in America the movement of history produces, if possible, an even more hollow echo than it does in Russia. Generally speaking, "history" is a category of European existence, as far removed from Russia as from America. The difference is that Russia longs for history, suffers pangs of jealousy for it, while America is virtually indifferent to it.

America can be viewed as the most western point of the Western world; and yet at the same time it is more eastern than the Far East, and for this reason: a maximum of (western) temporal velocity as a means to its (eastern) annihilation. America is a land of nature and technology: there is little space left over for history. Civilization in America has taken on a form notable for its naturalness and tranquillity; it lacks the nervous tick, the passionate break with nature that marks European history. For history is the unhappy consciousness of "Faustian" man, who has broken with spontaneity and experienced the guilt of acceleration, alienation from the soil and the intoxicating freedom of uncertainty. If a person constantly moves at high speed, he or she ultimately ceases to feel its jolt and alienation, with its corresponding complex of temptation and repentance, freedom and guilt. Moving at the same speed as the soil, this person takes the motion itself as a form of rootedness.

Americans of course live very fast-paced and active lives; however, they do not experience time in its historical sense, as constituted by events, landmarks, and transitions from the old to the new. America lacks a feeling for boundaries and canons, it does not make qualitative leaps because it does not accumulate enough quantitative change to create the conditions for a qualitative leap: it simply advances from one quantity to another. The old is unable to take root and harden, nor is novelty perceived as a great leap: things simply change, and these very changes generate a feeling of permanency. The train barrels down tracks so smooth and straight that nothing shakes or rattles: movement becomes a form of rest.

This is why it is so difficult to identify which novelties and which representatives of cultural innovation really matter in America. As renewal takes place steadily and continuously, each agent of change is granted but a few quanta of any new quality. This is quite different from the case of Europe, and especially Russia, where change erupts like a volcano, having been held back by the brake of tradition so that it eventually explodes with incredible force.

The American sensation of congealed time remains constant whether one is looking at the flat surface of a lake, at the distant forest, or at the panorama of a huge city and its stream of passing cars. Time here is everywhere accelerated — and yet it remains tranquil within this speed. The surface of an American superhighway, on which myriads of automobiles flow, is in its own way as serene as the still surface of a pond.

Even in the busy round of daily activities, when there's not enough time, an idyllic feeling remains. In Russia, by contrast, the lack of time is tormenting, it's like the feeling of trying to catch a train for which one is late: if you don't hurry up, if you don't rush, press forward, it might leave you behind forever. In America, this feeling of not having enough time is experienced by someone who is already seated on the train. Of course the train may arrive late at its designated stop, but there is no longer any danger of being left behind . . . This is the joy experienced by someone who has mastered the rhythms of motion: even if you slow down, you will still be carried forward.

This kind of time moves at the speed of a superhighway; yet, because surrounded by nothing other than velocity, time seems to stand in place, as if swaying peacefully on a still lake in a fine light wind. In this mild and sad idyll, civilization merges with the landscape, and no wind from distant European history can disturb it. Thus, at the far edge of the agitated Western world, one suddenly discovers an almost sleeping East.

 

September 1992

 

                                             Trans. Thomas Epstein

 



[1] The author here is making an untranslatable etymological point: the Russian word for time, vremya, shares the same root with the Russian word for the verb to turn or spin, vertet'.