Timeliness

Chess is a game intensely focused on the value of the moment. While the hours of the clock stretch on, the moment of play is far more eternal. Quite frankly, time is not about the moment so much as a sweeping survey of multiple moments, each deprived of their infinite significance and generalized into the likewise infinite abyss which we so lackadaisically entitle “time.”
Time—the word is all too ubiquitous, so that now the significant meanings are hashed and debased. They say that time is priceless or that “time is money.” Everything is qualified by what its worth to the author of that very moment and yet, a moment spent pondering the value of an activity is a moment lost. Either a moment is squandered and thus lost, or its infinite value is finite production.
At this point it becomes clear that each individual will claim an equally unique measure of the productivity of his/her moment. Even when we admit to wasting time or having a particularly productive afternoon, time was ours to use as we saw fit or as we were externally coerced (or paid) to. And while it would be inappropriate to slander another’s “well spent time” (even in the case of papers which have become shadows of their former selves), there must be some generalized key to productivity; some rule that divides wasted moments and profitable moments.
In the least specific of terms, one could say, that which benefits the self, another, or the whole, and preferably the best combination of the three (with increasing weight to the larger groups) with reasonable room for human error and exceptions. Perhaps the best advice is that a moment ought to be ‘spent’ to realign our value of the moment with something more eternal than the sum of each moment passed thus far. (Thomas Reher)