A Blog Called "The Big Time"
And What It Might Mean for Time to Be Big in the First Place
Of course, you’ve heard of “the big time”.
It’s a common idiom, and it just refers to a given discipline’s highest level of performance. To “hit the big time” in sports, business, or entertainment is to reach that domain’s highest, most visible stage. The big leagues, where even the smallest actions have great significance. A word that by definition means “most worthy of attention”.
Of course, it’s this significance (and the attention it demands) that distinguishes the NFL from grade school football. The mega corporations of the NASDAQ from your corner liquor store. The Killers are big-time; another middling version of “Mr. Brightside” at Monday night karaoke… is not.
At least, that is the received meaning of “the big time” we already share.
For most, that would be enough, and we could just reserve this phrase’s meaning for the biggest shows on earth and the activities of big-time artists and athletes and politicians. As usual. Unfortunately… as usual… I am chronically preoccupied with language and the meaning of words. And so, this whole idea of “the big time” got me thinking about the bigness of time, in general… and what might make time big in the first place.
What Makes Time Big
Well, I’ll tell you right now. I still don’t know for sure. Not really.
In the end, “the bigness of time, in general” was simply too big an idea to wrap my head all the way around. At least in one blog post. I tell you this now, because here and elsewhere, I don’t intend to present a final set of conclusive findings.
Really, if anything, this blog is just meant to be a record of the act of thinking itself. A verbal depiction of a mind in mid-thought. Like the essays of Montaigne. Or the Socrates of Plato’s early dialogs, who tended to end conversations in just the same place as he began them: at an impasse. A state of uncertainty. Or confusion. Or, as in the original Greek, aporía (my favorite translation of which is “a suspension of conviction”).
As Socrates famously said, “All I know is that I know nothing.”
And I think this kind of skepticism clarifies the central question of this post.
Because if (like Socrates) I begin from a place of presumed ignorance, then I’m forced to reconsider the apparently perfectly obvious. What is so obvious and taken-for-granted that it’s practically invisible. And to me, this concept of “the big time” is invisible in just that way. It’s an idiom I absorbed subconsciously growing up; that I’ve always taken for granted; but that even after repeated questioning, I have only better (and not fully) understood.
This approach may take some getting used to.
I mean, I don’t think this kind of thinking comes naturally to most of us over the age of 5. Because in a way, Socrates was like a toddler steadily unraveling your sanity and understanding of reality by asking “But why?”. Over and over again, ad nauseum. (In life, Socrates was widely considered to be very annoying by his peers… and in the end, he was executed by the Athenians for just this annoyingness.)
Of course, usually, we ask questions hoping for the most widely accepted answer. The explanations agreed to by consensus. That have “social proof”. Here though, really, the objective is just the opposite: to frustrate and complicate the easy, most widely accepted, default-setting explanations for things. To not accept the easy answers. And so maybe, if we’re doing it right, it should feel a little frustrating at first.
But it’s not just that. Because you know?
I think I’d rather live in a world where ultimately the mystery of “the big time” remains unsolved. (I don’t know… maybe you would too. Sometimes, it’s more interesting not to know for sure.)
For now, all I really know is that the big time is out there, somewhere. That it exists. That it is something. I know this, because I keep referring to it (as “the big time”), and you keep having at least some sense of what I’m talking about. Some sense of this phrase’s meaning.
“You’re a fan of The Killers?” you ask, for example.
And the guy at Monday night karaoke says, “Big time.”
And we all understand.
Or do we? And if we do… why?
Who knows, maybe we’ll just end up right where we started. In confusion. Or in the suspension of conviction. Maybe, in the end, all we’ll be able to say about the bigness of time is that “you just know it when you see it”. That you just have to recognize these kinds of things through intuition and experience. That it’s like what Louis Armstrong said about jazz. Which to paraphrase, was, “Lady, if you have to ask [what makes it good], you’ll never know.”
Unfortunately, as you know, I am chronically preoccupied with words. What we can only use to gesture at a reality that is fundamentally non-verbal in nature. But we have no real alternative of course. All we have to construct meaning from experience with… is words.
The Meaning of Words
With all that being said, here’s what I think I’ve discovered: as a concept, “the big time” seems to link the related meanings of the words “action”, “significance”, “anticipation”, and “attention”.
In short, first, you encounter…
action, which is perceived as
significant. Or “big”. And this in turn motivates that feeling of
anticipation so characteristic of the big time. The feeling that makes time “big” and motivates a more acute, concentrated level of
attention, where even the smallest details are foregrounded as if in the highest conceivable pixel density.
In the end, it’s just these high-resolution moments of time that stand out most in our lived experience. These are the times that signify most importantly. That matter most of all. “The stuff of life”, if you like. Or what life might really be about.
So… could it be that the “big time” fan of The Killers is saying that deep down, The Killers make him feel more alive?
Maybe.
Let’s rewind and see if that makes sense. Start again from the beginning. From action. The thing that kicks off the whole causal chain that results the bigness of the so-called “big time”.
So… what is “action”, really?
On Action
Besides the most basic definition (“a thing you do”), my favorite definition of “action” is the slang definition…
(noun): an interesting or exciting activity, often of an illicit nature
You could, for example, refer to “the action” of an underground gambling ring. Where you might need some kind of insider info to “get in on the action.” (And then, of course, there’s also the sexual connotation of “getting action”.) In any case, this slang definition is especially useful, I think, because there does seem to be something inherently interesting or significant (or “big”) about getting away with something disallowed or taboo.
Even if that thing is only technically against the rules.
For example, for me, this slang definition of “action” also calls to mind that one summer night in college when we all snuck over the fence of a local gated community and hung out in the resident’s-only hot tub for a while… smoking weed and cigarettes and playing it cool like the heretofore undiscovered stars of a Richard Linklater coming-of-age movie. Like “Boyhood”. Or a zillennial “Dazed and Confused” circa 2013.
Breaking the rules made that time “bigger”, I suppose. In that trespassing was an exciting activity that made the time more significant. Because still today, that episode stands out in my memory among the many other less consequential things I did that summer. (The countless tiny, menial actions I have by now totally forgotten.)
That’s one way to qualify an experience as “significant”, I guess: that it has the quality of being memorable. That it can be recalled to the present even years or decades later. And here, as before, attention to the present seems to be the litmus test: if “the action” snaps your brain back into the present moment, then it’s big. Then, it’s significant. You have discovered a signal in the noise.
And that’s key, I think. The part about the present.
Because any action, interesting or not, must happen in the present. Of course, you can’t act in the future, because it doesn’t exist yet. And you can’t act in the past, because it doesn’t exist anymore.
Again, apparently perfectly obvious.
And yet… the constant, gentle reminder of this fact—that only the present exists—is still broadly useful as a prescription for mental wellbeing. It tends to help with stress, that is. And that’s because if you’re like most people, it’s very easy to stress about past and future actions that you cannot actually take.
And too, there’s something else that’s peculiar about the nature of time.
And that is, as you get older, the faster time passes. And the bigger (or more significant) your time left becomes. Indeed, by the end, looking back, it will feel as if no time has passed at all. I think we all sort of know this already… but it’s so easy to forget. (It’s just that as you get older, it gets harder and harder to ignore.)
So… could it be that the true shortness of time is what makes it big? That time only feels small and unimportant when we lose sight of its true scarcity, and develop the false impression that now will last forever?
What Could Be the Biggest Time of All
In short, I think we can now attempt to describe “what makes time big in the first place”.
First, you have present action that is big enough to focus your attention back on the present moment. (Of course, the present is the only time action can truly exist.) Then, expecting more action, you develop anticipation that focuses your mind on the extremely near future. A future that—as you age—is harder and harder not to see as a truly scarce resource.
And if all of that is true… then couldn’t it be that the biggest time of all was just this—right here, right now? The fleeting, momentary circumstances of the current present? The only time you can actually exist and take action in and create experiences worthy of attention?
Even now?
Really, this attempt at a description suggests that even this apparently ordinary version of the current present—the here and now, in which you’re reading this confusing blog post—could be the big time. That even the smallest, most ordinary moments of the present—even now—could have a real and lasting significance.
And that we’ve only grown used to not seeing it that way from boredom and habituation.
In fact, maybe hitting this kind big time is an almost illicit action (as in the slang definition). That life—when really appreciated—is something we’re actually getting away with, despite everything. Despite the relentless labor and banality and suffering and illness of adult human life. So much so that engaging deeply with life anyway is almost a crime of passion.
What I Talk About When I Talk About The Big Time
With all that being said, have we now developed a new shared understanding of the big time? One that is both more ordinary and more essential? I’m not sure. But maybe we can say that “the big time” is any period of heightened attention to significant action. Or any moment of the present where the POV character realizes whatever deeper significance, even in apparently unremarkable circumstances.
If so, what we’re really saying is that time can be big not just because of the sheer number of eyeballs glued to the primetime broadcast, but because of the peculiar meaning and significance that is revealed when you pay very close attention to the apparently perfectly obvious. The “stuff of life”. Or whatever reality you’re referring to when you say “It’s been real.”
What I am otherwise constantly distracted from by the infinite scroll of social media.
As in the big leagues, as in quiet moments in traffic, washing dishes, or waiting in line at the grocery store: in the big time, every action really matters. In the big time, the moment is full of energy and anticipation. When the action hits, we peer over the brink of time, waiting to see what happens next.
Anyway, I think I’ve riffed on that for long enough to clarify my point.
In short, to borrow that famous locution of Raymond Carver’s, this (see above) is “what I talk about when I talk about the big time”. (And it is borrowing, not stealing. Because I will give it back to him when I see him next...)
At least… these are some meanings of “the big time” that maybe now, we have a new shared understanding of.
Anyway, I’m Writing This Blog Called “The Big Time”
Really, at the end of the day, I just want to write something cool, and spend more time writing cool stuff, and spend less time scrolling social media.
With this blog, I have one of the same goals I’ve always had (as an unpublished scribbler). And that is to use language to sustain a deeper kind of thought over time. (So far, it has taken me probably 100 plus iterations to write just this silly post, and I don’t think I could’ve done it any other way.)
Taking another perspective, I suppose, I want to use this blog as a way to live more consciously and intentionally. How? Through a closer examination of my experience through writing. As a writer, if nothing else, I want to hit some kind of big time, where I can appreciate even the tiny actions of the everyday as if they really do matter. Even on the small-time stages of my own life, where apparently very little is at stake.
I figure… if I have to write about it every week, I’ll be more awake, more alive to my lived experience and really appreciate the true nature of reality. (A philosophical way of describing “what’s really going on around here”.)
And too, I want to engage with the actual messy process of writing that results in this blog material. I want to engage with the living, breathing subject of the writing itself. Me. After all, I am the captive audience of my own little first-person narrative all the time anyway. I might as well make it a good one.
Or at least good enough to post out here on the internet.
The French novelist Marcel Proust said that “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” If you’ve made it this far, cool. Maybe you’ll join me on this journey of discovery. To see with new eyes. To better—if not ever fully—understand what’s really going on.
Questions? Commentary? Feedback? Suggestions? Fire away. Otherwise…
Welcome to The Big Time.