Month: October 2017

“If there is any concept that demands our attention, it is Kairos.” – Curlington Q Curls

The novel Anathem had a set of martial arts practitioners who payed special attention to what they called “emergences”, which were unexpected situations where a story could change substantially in a short window of time, which were often dangerous, and which demanded a bias for decision and action.

The martial artists in the story viewed emergences with an almost spiritual reverence as great opportunities, and oriented their training to overcome the natural human tendency to lock up during these moments. They were training for kairos.

On the other hand, the novel Dune had the Fremen, who had the concept of “spannungsbogen”, rough German translation “bow under tension”.

To quote, “The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called ‘spannungsbogen’ – which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”

I find these are important concepts to pair, because while at first blush they seem to be in conflict, they’re well separated by context. In most moments, most quiet moments especially, spannungsbogen is called for. But here and there, if you sense an emergence, it is very healthy to switch to kairos.

So it is with most oppositional pairs: no right or wrong, only context.

But never freely mix greek and german words. That’s just always wrong.