Duration of engagement

Duration of engagement qualifies participation, validates contributions and therefore deeply influences human lives. One can be as authentic on Facebook as on a piece of land for 80 years. Where authenticity used to be a property of being in one place for long stretches of time, in today’s world this notion is replaced by being engaged in an activity for specific durations of time. Duration of engagement is needed for authentic human participation to emerge. Longer durations of engagement need to include ‘empty time’ for human experience to surface. In empty time, whether one is bored or not, feelings, emotions and a different thinking surface and human presence emerges. To generate empty time, robust structures of time design are needed. Only in moments of empty time people can experience the situation they are in and act to be well. When duration of engagement is not properly designed, including a start and end with empty time within as well, human beings loose well-being in significant ways.