The Long Here and Now

John X

Since its inception in 1996, The Long Now Foundation has been focused on providing a new framework for humans to consider the phenomenon of time. Founded by a group of thinkers including Stewart Brand, Brian Eno and computer scientist Daniel Hillis, the group aims to create a longer sense of the present. As Brand says: "Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span . . . Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed - some mechanism or myth that encourages the long view and the taking of long-term responsibility."

The group is actively working to build a monumental clock in the Nevada desert that will keep time for at least 10,000 years. Along with the clock the group is planning a library for the long-term storage of human culture. They welcome contribution of ideas as well as funds.

The clock will calculate "deep time," counting centuries and millenia, and its mythical status leads me to consider Daniel Pinchbeck's emphasis on the importance of envisioning a new calendrical system to orient our collective consciousness, as well as Gebser's view of time-freedom. Our future path lies somewhere in the zone between time and timelessness.