要管理的不是时间，而是自己
这个月的读书群的第二本书是 Procrastination: Why You Do it, What to Do About It NOW。书名就告诉我们这本书讲了两个内容：我们为什么拖延和怎么做来改善这种情况。
这本书写的有些啰嗦，尤其是对比我们刚刚读完的轻松有趣又有干货的The Willpower Instinct，这本书中的写作风格是堆砌例子，能用几句话说清楚的也必须讲个故事再补充说明一下。
在有关如何读书的几点分享中我和大家分享了刘末鹏（《暗时间》的作者）的阅读心得，其中提到：
切勿一个字一个字的读书，这是对时间的浪费，是极其低效的阅读方式 -- 读英文原版书也是这样，切勿逐字的读，要讲究节奏。注意在阅读中要选择性地过滤掉不想干的废话 -- 可能是作者写high了；对于一些冗余的例子也可以过滤掉（前提是已经觉得印象够深刻了这些例子完全可以不看。）
但是写作啰嗦并不说明这本书写得不好，只能说这是作者的写作风格。作者用10个章节的篇幅帮助我们从多个角度来说明拖延的“根”在哪里, 再用8个章节分享了如何overcoming procrastination，每一章的编排也很清晰，语言平实也有时不时的卖萌和风趣。只是我们读的时候一定不要逐字地读，对于一些老生常谈的地方我们看一下标题和手段末端基本上就可以了，对于一些“新知”我们可以稍微花点功夫做一些搜索，并且和我们的prior knowledge联系起来。
造成拖延的一个原因是我们与时间的关系, 书中提到“时间”这个概念有两个方面：
The ancient Greeks referred to two aspects of time—chronos, or clock time, and kairos, a “time in between,” a moment outside of chronos time that is significant and meaningful.
Procrastinators often have a "wishful thinking" approach to time or see it as an opponent to outwit, outmaneuver, or outlive. This attitude toward time fuels more procrastination. If your "subjective time" is in conflict with "clock time", it is difficult to anticipate deadlines, work steadily toward a goal, or predict how much time you need to get things done.
我们对时间的主观认识是随着我们的成长逐渐变化的，在不同的阶段我们对时间会有不同的认识（从这个角度我们可以解释很多事情，例如造成“中年危机”的可能原因，例如“五十知天命”）。理想状态的话，一个心智成熟的人的主观认识和时间的客观存在会是高度重合的，那样的话我们的生活就是有规律的，也不会有拖延这种情况。
更多的情况下，我们对时间认识并没有随着我们年龄的增长而进化，并且会产生一种我们可以控制时间的错觉，尤其是当我们有压力有情绪的时候，我们对时间的认识会被扭曲, 陷入与现实失联、空想未来、沉溺过去的死循环。
这让我想到了李笑来老师在《把时间当作朋友》的第一版前言中提到的：
人是没办法管理时间的，时间也不听从任何人的管理，他只会自顾自一如既往地流逝。“管理时间”只不过是人们的一厢情愿而已。换言之，人类能做的事情顶多只不过是发明改进测量时间的工具而已，根本没有任何办法去左右时间。
要管理的不是时间，而是自己。人们生活在同一个世界，却又各自生活在自己的那个版本之中。改变自己，就意味着属于自己的那个版本的世界将会随之改变，其中也包括时间的属性。开启自己的心智，让自己能够用最可能准确的方式思考、观察、记录、总结、分享和行动，那么自己的时间就会拥有不同的质量，进而整个生活都必然焕然一新。
关于时间的两个定义"subjective time" 和 "clock time"，让我想到了之前读的一本书 Einstein's Dreams（《爱因斯坦的梦》）。康夏评论这本书时说“在这本书里，你可以读到地球上关于时间最美妙的讨论。” 这是一个像日记像诗的小说，以时间为线索来写故事讲哲学，文字优美耐人寻味。今天和大家分享其中的第四个梦，希望你也会喜欢。
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在这个世界里有两种时间，机械的时间和身体的时间。第一种既定不移, 第二种随心所欲。
In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
Many are convinced that mechanical time does not exist. When they pass the giant clock on the Kramgasse they do not see it; nor do they hear its chimes while sending packages on Postgasse or strolling between flowers in the Rosengarten. They wear watches on their wrists, but only as ornaments or as courtesies to those who would give timepieces as gifts. They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythms of their moods and desires. Such people eat when they are hungry, go to their jobs at the millinery or the chemist’s whenever they wake from their sleep, make love all hours of the day. Such people laugh at the thought of mechanical time. They know that time moves in fits and starts. They know that time struggles forward with a weight on its back when they are rushing an injured child to the hospital or bearing the gaze of a neighbor wronged. And they know too that time darts across the field of vision when they are eating well with friends or receiving praise or lying in the arms of a secret lover.
Then there are those who think their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o’clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock. They make love between eight and ten at night. They work forty hours a week, read the Sunday paper on Sunday, play chess on Tuesday nights. When their stomach growls, they look at their watch to see if it is time to eat. When they begin to lose themselves in a concert, they look at the clock above the stage to see when it will be time to go home. They know that the body is not a thing of wild magic, but a collection of chemicals, tissues, and nerve impulses. Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock. As such, the body must be addressed in the language of physics. And if the body speaks, it is the speaking only of so many levers and forces. The body is a thing to be ordered, not obeyed.
Taking the night air along the river Aare, one sees evidence for two worlds in one. A boatman gauges his position in the dark by counting seconds drifted in the water’s current. “One, three meters. Two, six meters. Three, nine meters.” His voice cuts through the black in clean and certain syllables. Beneath a lamppost on the Nydegg Bridge, two brothers who have not seen each other for a year stand and drink and laugh. The bell of St. Vincent’s Cathedral sings ten times. In seconds, lights in the apartments lining Schifflaube wink out, in a perfect mechanized response, like the deductions of Euclid’s geometry. Lying on the riverbank, two lovers look up lazily, awakened from a timeless sleep by the distant church bells, surprised to find that night has come.
Where the two times meet, desperation. Where the two times go their separate ways, contentment. For, miraculously, a barrister, a nurse, a baker can make a world in either time, but not in both times. Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.