Small fluffy bundle of time
Story 215
The signs are - it seems - everywhere.
Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?
Notes and thoughts
This is Barnes. In late Spring. Young swans.
As the posters explain, the cygnets divide their time between the Pond, Green and Brook. At this stage, their world is barely four hundred metres across. Soon enough they will head for the Thames. They will migrate down the High Street — Transport for London, take note: they cross where you are currently planning a turning circle — and onwards to the Thames.
Their appeal, beyond the obvious, is how they mark time.
A small fluffy bundle of time.
Not so long ago, time was a critical part of my professional life. Margins were measured - literally - in thousandths of seconds. World class engineers sweating over differences so small most people would never notice them.
Now, time is marked differently.
The arrival of the cygnets each spring is one of those markers.
Time feels less pressing than it once did. But more valuable.
Part of that value comes from seeing the difference between the urgent and the important. Not choosing one over the other. Understanding the trade-offs. Adjusting the overall balance of the two, a little at a time.
My own sense of what matters comes back to the generational challenges explored through Barnes2050.
I keep coming back to that Carl Sagan quote.
So the arrival of these cygnets each spring serves as an annual reminder of why this project exists.
A small fluffy bundle of time.