THE TIME

Abstract

The image is a photo taken on the stairs of the Voltaire Hotel in Paris. Since the first time I saw it, I felt provoked by time, a remarkable dimension of our existence and still intriguing as a concept for analysis, especially of organizational phenomena. In this pleasant hotel, not only the stairs, but also the rooms, the reception and even the owners are references to the past and future, in a peculiar temporal convergence.

The rooms, very colorful, with a modern look are the opposite of the corridors, which keep the probable decoration elaborated in another time. Ne entrance, a set of souvenirs from different countries, inheritances from trips or guests of various nationalities, tell the story of one or more generations of those who take care of the establishment. And about them... a couple of nice old people always willing to talk about current events and the situation in the guest's country. It is the time experienced in different ways: chronological, historical, objective and interpretative.

The position of the photo, taken on the third of the six floors of the building, allows us to see the temporal whirlwind as we look down and a similar but less clear path as we look up. A metaphor for the connection of past and future in the present moment. As well as the stairs our reflection when elaborating a text, a class or a seminar, as well as the answers we find at the moment of an interview bring this connection. The thought, the ideas, the narrative, the answers of the present are built from the set of archived memories that are continuously reorganized with the glimpse of the future.

Our encounter with time is continuous, but we still reflect little on it and its marks in the ways of thinking, narrating and acting. We embrace more consciously the whirlwind of time by looking at the past, reflecting the future and transforming the present.