Jay Matthews

"Five years from now, what will your future self think of your current self? Will you even be the same person?"

That is the predicate of the slender, poetic 1993 novel  Einstein's Dreams by physicist Alan Lightman — a book about time and the tricks we play on ourselves to bear our transience, a book that does for time what Alain de Botton’s  The Course of Love does for love: punctuating a fictional world with philosophical quickenings, thought experiments,... See more

"Long ago, before the Great Clock, time was measured by changes in heavenly bodies: the slow sweep of stars across the night sky, the arc of the sun and variation in light, the waxing and waning of the moon, tides, seasons. Time was measured also by heartbeats, the rhythms of drowsiness and sleep, the recurrence of hunger, the menstrual cycles of... See more

Understanding and empathising with a persona’s behavioural patterns puts the user at the forefront of the solution, ensuring a well-rounded product catering to both business and user needs.

Take, for instance, the dream-world in which time does not flow but sticks, adhering each town to a particular point in history and each person to a particular point in life. There is no shared stream of present in this world — only islands of neighboring solitudes, each suspended in a different moment of a different past: "The tragedy of this... See more

Through fantasy we repair, compensate, and transform. For a few moments, we rise above the reality of life and, subsequently, the reality of death.

More often it is the defensive, counterfeit form of that pursuit: an exercise in going through the motions of “pursuing excellence” in order to escape the guilt and anxiety imposed by our inner drill sergean t, or simply to numb the uncomfortable awareness of lacking a genuine ideal.