2.1. Time and tasks
In projects here in the physical world, we are used to the idea that tasks follow one another, and that once one task has been completed the next one begins. But time does not mean a great deal in the spiritual world, and often you find that not much appears to be happening for quite a long while as the results of the task ‘bed in’ and get used.
These are large tasks that take a long time to achieve and as a consequence, they take some time to ‘roll-out’. Just as with evolution of species, the evolution of ideas in man is marked by sudden brief periods of creativity, often followed by periods of apparent stagnation, but which in reality are periods of consolidation, whilst the ideas are tested and other people catch up.
At times it appears as if those who are really creative are so thinly spread that they need to be concentrated geographically for a while in order to get the ideas off the ground. When this happens other areas stagnate or even decline. Cultures rise and cultures fall.
Janus – Arthur Koestler
In between periods of rapid evolution there are much longer stretches of stagnation and decline – there are the lone giants, who seem to appear from nowhere… [but in general] .. there is a cumulative progression in every art form – in a limited sense, in a limited direction, during limited periods. But these short, luminous trails sooner or later peter out in twilight and confusion, and the search for a new departure in a new direction is on….
The evolution of science does not show a more coherent picture.
A Chinese proverb says that there is a time for fishing and a time for drying nets. And this may sum up the entire way that evolution – whether of ideas or species – works. Progression during brief limited periods, not along a steady curve of progress but in fits and starts, interspersed by periods of reflection – time for the rest of the population to take in the advances made and use them, build on them slowly.