Deep Time and Deep Work
“Deep” is in and these two terms will yield results when you Google them or check them out in Wikipedia as I just did.
Google says this:
Deep time" refers to the time scale of geologic events, which is vastly, almost unimaginably greater than the time scale of human lives and human plans. It is one of geology's great gifts to the world's set of important ideas.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say:
“Deep time is a term introduced and applied by John McPhee to the concept of geologic time in his Basin and Range (1981), parts of which originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine.The philosophical concept of geological time was developed in the 18th century by Scottish geologist James Hutton (1726–1797); his "system of the habitable Earth" was a deistic mechanism keeping the world eternally suitable for humans. The modern concept shows huge changes over the age of the Earth which has been determined to be, after a long and complex history of developments, around 4.55 billion years.
The DeepTime Network tries to come from a broad perspective, though it doesn’t have an emphasis on geology and might benefit from more references to it. I created a map of the main components of the perspective just to provide a big picture view.
When you Google Cal Newport, you go straight to the book order site loved and despised by all. Deep Work is the title of a book by Cal Newport. Wikipedia tells us this about him.
“Newport coined the term "deep work," in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (2016) which refers to studying for focused chunks of time without distractions such as email and social media. He challenges the belief that participation in social media is important for career capital. In 2017, he began advocating for "digital minimalism. In 2021, he began referring to the role email and chat play in what he calls "the hyperactive hive mind".
I’ve read the book and it has some useful advice for a curious and distractable person like me. I’m also currently participating in a DTN course that attempts to prepare leaders in to use the new cosmology.
Much of its framework depends on the writing and teaching of Thomas Berry, a Passionist priest and a cultural historian who pondered the impact of culture and religion on our attitude toward the environment. He called as early as 1978 for a New Story that incorporated the learnings of science and religion. The purpose was to create a new spiritual framework for all institutional forms that included the entire universe story into religious and cultural history – especially those of the West. Later he framed this as a journey, a sequence of non-reversible events. To follow through would have a profound impact on education, government, law and world religions themselves. The assigment went far beyond simply learning about other faiths through social gatherings, study groups or visits to places of worship, but getting down to the business of saving our common planet together.
Berry’s impact on his graduate students was immense and his teachings have found an impressive home at Yale in the Yale Forum for Religion and Ecology. There are solid resources there which come for free to all who are interested. One of the aspects I admire is their thoroughness. There is a continuing relationship with world religions. In contrast the DTN is going more in the direction of creating a new one – for the spiritual but not religious. Some of the participants are RC nuns, who have every reason to distrust their hierarchy. Much of the energy of some has a stamp of Berry’s teaching. He was willing to spend lots of time teaching them and they were good students. But other participants may be enthusiasts of their own individual spiritualities that used to be called New Age – and which Berry warned against.
I find it really interesting to spend time in worlds unlike those of my former not-for profit one or my institutional church one. At times I have to draw back a bit from endless new processes and their acronyms so much loved in America. Any workshop attender has been there. The temptation is to go down rabbit-holes of suggestions to explore that sometimes are a waste of time – though at least I would not say, dangerous. I’m starting to become impatient as to how many websites suggested by participants are focusing mainly on sales and donations even with a url of .org. My own .url is a leftover from the days I actually did have a business.
There is sometimes a tendency to think in such courses that a quotation substitutes for a entire body of learning. Understanding and absorbing any worthwhile body of work must be gained through serious study. Such a body of work is not like a short poem – a very good one does have the capability of creating a universe of its own. Some sessions on life long learning are coming up. I have some good track record in that area - long life a t least - of longer duration than the presenting academics. We’ll see how they relate to deep time and deep work.