Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 137

Intimacy Zone

Intimacy Zone is a small handle on a large fact. Grip it, and the fact becomes easier to carry.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Every January, the gym fills; by March, the regulars have the place to themselves again. The calendar changed nothing. The people who stayed simply stopped asking the calendar for permission.

Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. No ceremony needed. Begin with the very next decision.