Another day I was talking with Carmen, that the tradition of punctuality developed in Norther areas not without a reason. It sucks to wait for someone in - 10 ºC. And the weather in places, like Lithuania, Germany and Sweden, gets much worse. Thus, punctuality in the North is Human obligation (in contrast to human right not to freeze to death), respect and the basis for good health condition.
Meanwhile, temperature on Java dictates very different story. The number of 30 on the scale of thermometer also suggests how many minutes (at least) one has to wait for another one. It's OK to be late. More than that, the abstraction and relativity of time are social norms in a local habitat. If something ought to happen, it will happen, whether in an hour or in a week. And if it has happened, well it was not meant to.
One may say that it is the same with Arab Standard time, Italian Standard time, etc. People tend to care less about their and others schedules in the warm places. You don't have to be Doctor in sociology to observe that its rather nice to have another cup of espresso while one waits for a friend in the stunning Piazza del Duome, Firenze.
Nevertheless this entry not about Mediterranean or even much bigger Southern picture. It is about life in Indonesia. There are many features that distinguish Javanese people from the bigger picture of what in this entry I call normalities of flexible time. One of the is the avoidance of confrontation and overwhelming need of public politeness. My friend Carmen already wrote about the need of smile. People close their eyes here in so many occasions just to avoid the extremely unpleasant situation of a direct conflict. According to an Australian friend who I met recently and who lives on Java for a number of years, Javanese linguistic procedures and long exchanges of formal and socially normal phrases function as a tool and a space to deal with the situations of disagreement. Otherwise, these situation can grow into an open disputes, which are not very welcoming.
The number of 141 mln. inhabitant of the Java island has to be added next to the features that I touched upon previously. Hence, here we have a situation where people live extremely huge proximity, abstract time and the intreralational sham. This means that there are almost the infinite number of the little crisis of conflicts that are constantly postponed. It is rather easier to convince yourself that you deal with the "hot topic" later. Furthermore, it also raises a chance that a situation will solve itself and your agency in "the nasty business" will not be required anymore. However, this delay of any social conflict also defers large about of other things that could and should be done now. And here we live in a vicious circle, where the socially deviant frustration, caused by constant state of delay is hidden under the social implication of future action, that postpones even more things that have to be done and creates more anxiety. Yet, if you ignore it and learn to live with it, you will find yourself in the completely stressless environment, where sun is yellow and life is mellow.
Oddly, I start to feel that I cannot live in this relaxed and easy-going time of tomorrow and the momentum of Baumanish past screams and begs for stressful situation now. Kundera's of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" also fits my stay in Indonesia very well.
