The Sanskrit equivalent of Chronos is Kala, from which the destructive goddess Kali takes her name. Kairos in other culturesĪncient Indians had a similarly divided notion of time, and like the Greeks, they distrusted Chronos. Why did the artist fashion you? For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson. Why do you stand on tip-toe? I am ever running.Īnd why do you have a pair of wings on your feet? I fly with the wind.Īnd why do you hold a razor in your right hand? As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge.Īnd why does your hair hang over your face? For him who meets me to take me by the forelock.Īnd why, in Heaven’s name, is the back of your head bald? Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes it sore, take hold of me from behind. It had the following epigram carved into it: Who and whence was the sculptor? From Sikyon.Īnd who are you? Time who subdues all things. You can see a replica of it below -see how his hair is long at the front and shaved bald at the back? Photo: Sergey Sosnovskiy ( CC BY-SA 4.0) Statues of him could be found all across the Greek peninsula, but the most famous stood in now-ruined Sikyon. Kairos, on the other hand, was a young man, lithe and handsome. That’s Chronos in all his gruesome depravity. Take a look at Francisco de Goya’s famous painting, Saturn Devouring His Son, if you have the stomach for it. According to Roman myth, Saturn ate each of his sons the moment after they were born. It takes away everything you have and then it eats you too. His resemblance to the Grim Reaper is not accidental.Ĭhronos, or Saturn to the Romans, is the stuff that kills you. A weary, bent-backed old man with a long grey beard, carrying a scythe and an hourglass. You’re probably familiar with the personification of Chronos: just think of old Father Time. The Greeks liked to personify just about everything. It’s difficult to describe that feeling if you’ve never experienced it, but if you have, I hope my description can give you a name to call it by and a better understanding of it, as well as clues to seeking out more of it. The world takes a breath, and in the pause, before it exhales, fates can be changed. Further, it refers to the right moment, the opportune moment. Where Chronos is quantitative, kairos is qualitative. It refers to clock time - time that can be measured - seconds, minutes, hours, years. The first was Chronos, which we still use in words like chronological and anachronism. The ancient Greeks had two words for time, and kairos was the second. One of the most important words I’ve learned over the last decade is “ kairos. So learning new words to describe aspects of the human experience can help us grow. Here, philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein is saying that if we don’t have language to describe something, we can’t talk about that thing - we can’t even think about it. “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent.”
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