The Last Prophet

A classmate wrote me about "being on time" and I wrote her back:

Maya, thanks for the thoughtful response.  You got me to thinking about timeliness a bit more and I realize there are three aspects of timeliness which permeate the concept; 1) that of being on time 2) time of arrival impacting usefulness 3) timing.  We tend to default to thinking of timeliness as the act of being "on time", yet that's not always the most important aspect of time.

While that aspect is still central to defining timeliness its by no means limited to that.  So an example of timeliness is being on time or late; like showing up for work when expected (which would be showing up on time).  Interestingly you could show up too early and have your arrival be untimely - but typically its when we arrive late.

 A second example of timeliness, but as it relates to usefulness, would be if you have a vital organ from an organ donor scheduled for transplant.  If you are late and the patient were to die on the operating table your arrival is considered very untimely, or even if you had arrived on time yet the patient had already expired.  Here the measure is more based on the usefulness of the organ and not an expectation (there is overlap).

 An even more interesting example of timeliness is this description of "timing"; imagine your walking down the sidewalk and just as you pass below a window someone tosses a 3 pound rock down from the building your walking beside.  What if it hits your head?  The descriptive timeliness of that event would be "woefully untimely".  Not only does timeliness refer to our expectations, but also to "timing", and as well the usefulness of the 'arrival'.

So in other words timeliness is measured in the characterization of events, and that characterization is based on whats unexpected (timing), expected (showing up on time) and usefulness (too late or too early, like the organ above).  Which leads to one conclusion, just because something is late doesn't exclude the possibility of it being useful.

Been watching the Casey Anthony trial and fondly remembering the many other hearings and trials I've seen on the tube.  Watched all of the Clarence Thomas hearings, Iran-Contra hearings - and on court tv a trial occurring in Texas in 1997.  Interesting stuff!