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Time

Oral

• Time markers are not strictly observed.
• The past is not perceived as itemized terrain.

Example

And there I saw the One to Whom belongs the time before time, and His head was white like wool.

--"The Son of Man" from The Book of Enoch I

They boarded the boat, Gilgamesh and Urshanabi together, launching it out on the waves of Ocean. For three days they ran on as it were a journey of a month and fifteen days, and at last Urshanabi brought the boat to the waters of death: Then Urshanabi said to Gilgamesh, "Press on, take a pole and thrust it in, but do not let your hands touch the waters."

Gilgamesh, Part 4

Literate

• People orient themselves more strictly according to time markers
• They track the past as itemized terrain.

  Example

  • Those who judge of a work by rule are in regard to others as those who have a watch are in regard to others. One says, ‘It is two hours ago’; the other says,‘It is only three-quarters of an hour.’ I look at my watch, and say to the one,‘You are weary,’ and to the other,‘Time gallops with you’; for it is only an hour and a half ago, and I laugh at those who tell me that time goes slowly with me and that I judge by imagination. They do not know that I judge by my watch.

-- Blaise Pascal, 1623 - 1662

• See a perpetual calendar here
• This page tells you the time now as each second passes.

 

Exception: Primally-strong emotions trigger a default back to the oral mode.

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