Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 255

Temin Effect

Psychologists gave it a name because it kept happening. Temin Effect is the name; the happening you already know.

The effect is strongest precisely when nobody mentions it. Awareness does not kill it, but awareness does give you a vote. Without awareness you are not even in the room where the decision is made.

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.

Consider the farmer. He does not argue with the season; he arranges his work inside it. The city man does the opposite — he argues with every Monday and is surprised every Friday.

Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. One page cannot change a life. But one recognised pattern can change a Tuesday, and lives are made of Tuesdays.