What Time Works for You?

The podcast episode “WTW with Oroma” is a rich, philosophical, and deeply personal conversation centered around the nature of time, the interplay between tradition and modernity, and the value systems that shape how people live.

The discussion begins playfully with the question, “If you were a plant, what would you be?”, revealing metaphors about personality, identity, and hidden strength. Oroma chooses a rose plant, describing herself as beautiful yet thorny—delicate on the outside but capable of sharp responses when crossed. This sets the tone for a conversation that blends the personal with the philosophical.

As the conversation evolves, the trio reflects on the meaning and management of time. Oroma shares how motherhood shifted her perception of time from being spontaneous to being structured and intentional. She now plans her days with calendars and to-do lists, visualizing her time to ensure productivity while leaving space for flexibility and rest. She speaks of time as more than hours and minutes, instead emphasizing time as experience—especially time with her children versus time for herself.

This leads into deeper reflections on time from cultural, technological, and historical perspectives. The group explores the difference between Chronos (quantitative, clock-based time) and Kairos (qualitative, opportune time), a distinction from Greek mythology that resonates strongly with their lived experiences. They link this to African traditions, especially the role of proverbs as timeless vessels of wisdom that encode communal knowledge and values.

A significant portion of the conversation is dedicated to the relationship between indigenous knowledge systems and modern technology. They question whether the lack of precision in traditional methods—such as indigo dyeing without formulas—hinders scalability, or whether that organic flexibility is a strength. This discussion is framed by concerns about modernity’s obsession with measurement, productivity, and speed, which can erode intuition, community, and creative variation.

The conversation also touches on how digital technology—especially social media—both connects and fragments society. While platforms like Twitter shape new forms of “common knowledge,” they also distort time and attention spans, particularly among children. Oroma, however, remains optimistic, believing technology can be a tool for navigating life if people uphold their own values while using it.

Toward the end, they reflect on generational shifts in the perception of time—from their parents’ slower, letter-writing world, to their own structured calendars, to their children’s hyper-stimulated digital existence. The conversation closes on a note of balance, emphasizing the need to find harmony between structure and mystery, between progress and preservation, and between using technology and maintaining human values.

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Sheila Chiamaka Chukwulozie: Um If you were a plant what plant would you be?

Oroma: Oh my god I don't know I've been thinking about this for a while, I think a rose plant.

Sheila: Why?

Oroma: The thorn

Sheila: Okay

Oroma: The smell.

Sheila: Do you think you are thorny?

Oroma: Yes, I think I’m thorny

Sheila: How?

Oroma: I think I'm definitely Thorny I think I appear really beautiful and like gentle, I'm quite Thorny in the sense that like if you say the wrong thing or you could get on my bad side and it would hurt, you know like my reaction will be just like a prick.

Sheila: We are tucked into the duvet ready to talk\ Sleep. If we Sleep off just know what happened.

Uzoma: You have you seen

Sheila: Is this Confessions of a sad Lagos Boy?

Uzoma: I just have accepted it for what it is. Oroma how’s roro and our sleep girl?

Oroma: They are fine men but they're not here thankfully so no disturbances. They are with their grandparents in yaba having a blast.

Uzoma: Oh great. I think it's good.

Sheila: I know it's actually such a lovely time spent anyway um so I think we've decided we're going to call the podcast what time works for you? Because we ask the question so often but we are also like what time works for you like how do you think about time in the larger thing and the smaller thing? So, we start with, I mean, we've introduced ourselves before we’ll just ask you to introduce yourself in any way you can

Oroma: Oh, wow that's a challenge. Okay, so my name is Oroma cook gamete Itegboje. I am a designer living and working in Lagos. I am the founder of This Is Us Nigeria which is a Nigerian made sustainable design brand. I'm a mom to two kids.

Sheila: Or Three, Max

Oroma: Four if you include Osi, mom to three kids. A dog who’s seven, a boy who's five and A girl who's two, I mean 18 months what else am I? I call myself a life enthusiast. I just love everything that's living and I'm obsessed with the beauty bringing out the beauty around me. What else? I feel like that's a general creative I guess I just like to make stuff

Sheila: If you were a plant, what plant would you be?

Oroma: Oh my god I don't know. I've been thinking about this for a while. I could be a rose plant.

Sheila: Why?

Oroma: The thorn.

Sheila: Okay, okay

Oroma: The smell

Sheila: Okay do you think you are thorny?

Oroma: Yes, I think I can thorny.

Sheila: How?

Oroma: I think I'm definitely Thorny. I think I appear really beautiful and like gentle. I'm quite Thorny in the sense that like, if you say the wrong thing, or if you like, you could get on my bad side and it would hurt you know, like my reaction will be just like a prick. I won't kill you but it would be pricked. You know.

Sheila: You might wish you didn't.

Oroma: Exactly So yeah, might be a rose plant, plant not the flower just the plant.

Sheila: Why not the flower?

Oroma: Because the flower like you don't think about the thorns when you think about the flower.

Sheila: Every time I think about rose, I think about thorns

Oroma: There are some rose you see and You don’t find thorns.

Sheila: It always makes me think about the thorns because I feel like the story of a rose is so tied to the idea of a rose is something that is born of thorns like this beautiful thing is so… So, it's always like this is always linked to me.

Oroma: So maybe I'm a rose flower,

Sheila: Maybe because the thorns are your backstory, hidden.

Oroma: It is there as a part of who I am, but then not who I am.

Sheila: Exactly. Uzoma if you had to be a plant, what plant would you be?

Uzoma: I feel like I want to see an avocado tree, just because I really like avocados. But that doesn't seem like a good answer.

Sheila: Why? If that was your first answer, then that’s your answer.

Uzoma: Yeah, um, avocados are great. So, I just wanted to be like, imagine being something that produces avocados, how blessed.

Sheila: Right? Well, we are like show your working. avocado show your working is the tree? I understand.

Uzoma: Yeah.

Sheila: If I were plant God, I just talked about this is yesterday.

Oroma: Yes, you did

Sheila: What plant did I say? Oh my God, I can’t remember what plant I said. But now I'm thinking about it. I would be something that took a lot of time to sort of like, see, I would Oh my God, I would be an indigo plant. I would be an indigo plant. Like I would like, hide all my molecules and pretend I'm just a green leaf.

Oroma: Exactly

Sheila: And then if you break into me, I start doing…

Oroma: And you have all these colors.

Sheila: Yes, yes. And all those transformations. Like even when I die. I give off color.

Oroma: Sorry I had to answer your question.

Sheila: No no it makes sense please. Answer for me if I ask any question about myself, just take the lead. But yeah, so Oroma just some background as to what this podcast really is about. Uzoma please jump in at any time. We're basically just trying to rather than even answer questions that we have. We're trying to ask more questions, like add more interesting questions to this idea of querying time, and when I say querying, I mean ordering time, because the idea of time that we have this, so it's very complex. But when we say time, on a daily basis, we mean, like one o'clock to two o'clock, and even scheduling this missing, like maybe 5pm, or to be like 2pm. That's, on our microwave, on our watches, on our phones, like time was always even as we're recording this thing, now we're being counted down, so when do we get to step out of that time to see sort of like the time that has gone before us? Like how do we, in our own daily lives, even refer to time in ways that we don't even know that we're referring to time, for instance, now that Roland and or one are spending time with their grandparents, that's a specific type of time, but it's not like even though it's Monday to Tuesday or Monday to Thursday, the time with grandparents, Monday to Thursday is not the same thing as time with like mommy and daddy Monday to Thursday. It’s such a different thing in people's minds. So maybe my first question to you would be now that you’ve had kids, do you find your strategy? to redefine time for yourself? Or does it still flow in the same way? For you?

Oroma: Um, I would say that, before I had kids, I mean, my time has become way more precious to me, now that I have kids, First of all. before I had kids, I literally, honestly, I didn't think so much about what time to do what, I just did things whenever I felt like it. Pop kids in my equation, and what makes you do is just basically, you have to define things you have to do by like things you can do with them and the things you can't do with them.

Sheila: That’s true

Oroma: And so like, everything that you can't do them you have to do at a time when they're out of the way. So that's the first way that I kind of defined my time like this is associated with Sony icon. Yeah. And then everything else flows from them. So, it just means that it makes you kind of count your time more because you then understand or Wow, I've got five hours in this day to actually do whatever I want to do. And so yeah, I guess that's a new way for me of thinking about Time, time with kid’s time without kids.

Sheila: Has that helped or harmed? And in what ways has that helped and harmed?

Oroma: I would say it's helped because I'm have kids, I would do whatever Whenever I wanted, so I'm not actually… saying what but with kids, it's just helped me to kind of structure myself. Because actually with or without kids, everyone kind of needs to structure themselves when you're working with other people most of the time. So, it’s made my time so much more precious now, I basically have to plan my days ahead because there’s these two factors that can disrupt anything anytime. And then that just means that I'm way more structured with the way I'm planning not just with the kids, but with other people as well. And with my personal time, is more like a time for everything now, there’s time to yoga there’s time for praying…

Sheila: Do pen it in, like do note?

Oroma: I have like, in my notebooks, and my planners, I actually timed my entire day, like seven to seven thirty days. Eight to that. I don't always follow it exactly. But I know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Sheila: Are you one of those people that have to-do lists? To-do lists save my life, I just like to

Oroma: Yeah, yeah if I don't have a to do lists, I just won't do anything. If it is not on my to do list…,

Sheila: Are You serious?

Oroma: Okay, there's two levels. If it’s not my to do list, it will definitely not get done. even if it's on my to do list it might not get done. if it's in my calendar, it’s definitely getting done.

Sheila: Right.

Oroma: If it's not my calendar, it will get done. But I don't know what time we'll get done.

Sheila: So does that mean that it's really important for you to kind of like, visualize how your time is being spent

Oroma: Exactly, exactly. So, when I go to my calendar, I have to understand what that day looks like. And I can see everything that’s ahead of me, when I don't see that. It's a struggle, but I can go fast, I can go through Of course but it’s a struggle. it’s much easier when everything just kind of penciled in and you can kind of understand Oh, this is what my day looks like. It’s stressful or its not

Uzoma: Oroma, do you have that for every day? Like all the time?

Oroma: …on fixing things in my calendar. And that's usually when I'm doing really well with my time. When I'm able to manage myself, like if there's not that many things, I'm not that busy. I just booked two appointments a day, I know, I'm going to make those two appointments. But once I'm trying to do more than two things in a day, I need to put in my time so I can visualize it, see if it's practical, or … No go on.

Uzoma: Are there days were you just go and chill?

Oroma: Everything is scheduled in my calendar. I know my calendar. And I just like ignore it? that would usually be when it has nothing to do with anyone. If it's like my tasks, I could cancel everything.

Sheila: But that makes me feel sad

Oroma: I know, I know. I mean, I'm suffering. But just like sometimes I have over done it, a lot of times I’ve ever done it. like I over scheduled myself back-to-back to back. And then I have one more day where I just noticed that oh, it's all tasks to do with me. I'm not doing any of this. I'm going to the spa. Okay, go swimming, you know, because I'm just like, this was a bad scheduling and I can do it another time. I'm still flexible with my time even with my calendar.

Sheila: So, you don't put up like punish yourself when...?

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: No, I just reschedule it. So generally, if I cancel something for my calendar, I don't just leave it, I reschedule it. Because once it's in my calendar, there's already a time, it's that important that it was in my calendar in the first place. So, it just moves forward. Easily it usually won't just get like, ignored.

Sheila: I was going to ask, you know, like, in this stuff that Uzoma and I are doing like the project, kind of like texts is arrow of God. And I know now you're reading arrow of God.

Oroma: I just started but I haven't read.

Sheila: Yeah, well, at least you've started Once you've entered the first page. You already have to sort of like you're fighting to pull yourself in, but the book is so out of normal time in terms of time that we know now in this century or even in just our despair in which we live our lives because maybe there are people in Lagos who, Lagos is so varied maybe they really will still live like that, people in the villages still live like that. But I know at least two of us. We don't really live like how they're describing that the locals lived.

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: And some people or sometimes when we think about calendars and systems and systemic Time that feels like such a Western version of timing. So how do you? Do you ever sort of like, argue with yourself as to like, Why the fuck should I be on? Like, why should I be on this time? you know when people talk about how colored people's time is actually real? Because I mean, Nigeria will transmit points with if you actually want guests to show but you see that even stuff that will? And we'll get there for for like that on

Uzoma: Yeah

Sheila: That understanding of like, this is who people are? Do you ever feel why should I hold myself to this standard When it’s there? Or do you feel like people should actually. like improving the systemic thinking of their time doesn't make them any less? African or any less indigenous?

Oroma: Yeah, I don't think it makes you any less African or indigenous.

Uzoma: That’s a great question

Oroma: What’s more important is possibly what you're doing with the time, but also the reasoning behind how you're using the time. So, in something like Arrow of God, there's a time for, like, let's say farming, for instance, they talk about time in terms of like, when plants and when you harvest, and that's how they kind of seeing time or things like that. I guess you have to just think more about what do you have to do here in your environment around you in your locality? And what's the best time to do that thing? So, is there a time that everybody typically has, I've had a break? And what’s that related to? Is it related to the time when the sun is going down? Do you get what I mean, so I think you have to be quite conscious of what's going on around you. But still using those systemic tools to manage your time I think I’m very for using technology to kind of improve indigenous and local ways of living.

Sheila: Right.

Oroma: So, I think, definitely a combination.

Sheila: Do you think there's a clash like right now, just in our world, do you think there's an opposition?

Oroma: Interesting question.

Uzoma: Is between indigenous and, you know, modern?

Sheila: And technology as we know it.

Uzoma: Right.

Oroma: There is definitely probably a clash. But I can't think of any instances. Can you think of any instance?

Sheila: Oroma is pro tech all the way, she is pro tech all the way.

Oroma: I just think improves life. So.

Uzoma: We love it

Oroma: I think we can use it you know,

Sheila: It’s true we can use it.

Oroma: .. to improve life. And if it's not improving your life, then you would stop

Sheila: I swear, I mean everything is technology, I think what is the difference between what I'm saying as technology, and what we're not calling technology is only the acknowledgement by different bodies. This thing is technology, like this just isn't the material already at this mic. So, like, collecting river, it's some kind of clay that you collect. And I think the technology there is in knowing that something about that improves the system of your body.

Uzoma: Yes

Sheila: if you can continue, if you've been eating since you were small, and it's kept you alive, and you've continued now, it has worked for something. it has worked to keep you.

Oroma: Even if just a feel-good thing

Sheila: …even if it's just it's a good thing, like, even if it's just that. because feeling good affects all messages we send to the system. So, at the end of the day, what's the difference between placebo? And I mean, that argument is for a, maybe different parts of this podcast, but I'm saying that even just knowing, first of all, the first person who was able to do that, what step? Imagine the visionary thinking to be like? Let me just put this thing on my tongue and then swallow it. and I think that's the idea of tech its always about like, the visionaries, the progressives who sort of like Lead the Way, and maybe we just don't…. Sometimes I think we take for granted the ways in which we live our lives and then come up with things that improve our lives even with like language like slang, like gbos gbas has entered a dictionary very Recently, and who knew where it came from, but we needed it, when it came. we did to understand our Lagos, or like Higgy hagga or something like that. So, I just think that, for me, when I think about the clash between technology and indigenous ways of living, I think that it's because the system that the bodies institutions in the world that can acknowledge and then fund something to be popular technology, we don't really have. And now that I framed it like that, what do you think, is stopping? Or what do you think is, somehow make sure that we don't get to the same level as the people who are trying too much?

Oroma: As Africans?

Sheila: Yes. Or even as Nigerians just keep a small

Oroma: Or Nigerians? I mean, I think it's the same thing that has kind of always held us back. We are Not very scientific people. we’re more like, when I say scientific, I mean, understanding compositions of things and mathematic, like not actually let me take that back. Because mathematics is very much in our history.

Sheila: Yeah

Oroma: I mean, in the ways that we use things and build things and improve on our life, I think we haven’t, we're more kind of like organic, or like, just, let me give you an example of like, when we went to abakaliki.

Uzoma: Nice

Oroma: For indigo dyeing research. And the process of indigo dyeing is as much science as it is just like, ecology or like, just understanding how living things interact. So basically, the guy, the indigo Dyer, he's been doing this for years and years and years, he still has no formulas whatsoever. He has no idea how much of anything to mix, during the instructions that I'm putting together and asking him for, like just to measure, units of measure…

Sheila: He has an idea but not an exact measure.

Oroma: You can't measure your taste accurately; we're not interested in accuracy.

Sheila: So that's my thing, it’s like not being interested in accuracy also means that sometimes you leave room for remixing, for instance, I remember when, one time I was thinking about the doggy. So, when the doggy came out, people were now posting videos of like, whose doggy is better? everybody did their doggy with a different flavor of doggy.

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: But I was thinking the idea for instance of going to school to learn Chopin, your job is not to put your spin on a Chopin you play Chopin the way Chopin played Chopin and that is almost how that not even just Western but white tradition of passing down and measure, its tight and it is supposed to be accurate.

Oroma: That’s true.

Sheila: So do we… I sometimes get afraid that to require people to provide accuracy to that extent of like five inches or whatever is, in your way losing something about the like, if your mother opens the pot and closes its and she's like, yeah, we need two Maggi and you are like, did the pot talk to you, how do you know, we need two maggi.

Oroma: Yeah, because if you fail to scale, it's difficult to grow, There's lots of wastage. There's so many, I mean, I'm talking about that particular instance of making the solution, for instance, all the ways all the things he is suffering just because he can't be accurate. it holds us back on some level because that's the reason we're not where Westerners are with technology and everything.

Uzoma: I mean, so I've been, as part of this research, I've been learning a lot about African fractals, fractals that are very inherent in many African societies. And it makes me think about like, what's more like a fractal?

Sheila: Yeah, okay. starts again from those African fractals.

Uzoma: Yeah, so I'm just thinking about skill, like the idea of skill. And what this skill looks differently to us here. Like what if it's a more fractal-based system of scaling, where instead of one person or one dyer becoming a dye factory, right? you know, in line with that idea of remixing and the doggy that have a bunch of guys who. like the skill is in the variety and in the quantity rather than the extent

Sheila: …one thing they become like everything, why can't you have…. That reminds me of that thing….

Uzoma: Yeah, it’s more horizontal than vertical.

Sheila: Don’t think you read it. Where I was saying that they were saying that it’s too concentrated, the system wouldn’t survive, because then you'll just have, nothing will replicate, because it will become dormant as in it will become sterile when it’s just one thing, but the system of over diversity as well a system can die, because then there's nothing. It eats itself basically, because it still needs to, even with fractals, there's a beginning formula that allows the replication happen but in over diversity, if there's no, as opposed to almost be as if there's no formula, so you're not allowed to be anything. Like, it's almost as if it's against the rule to hold on to something and say this is who you are. So, the, the idea is that we now have to come to a middle. And my problem is, sometimes my worry is, on this side we think that it is only our job to move towards that side for a middle when they as well on the side of the West should also be moving towards our side for a middle ground.

Uzoma: Um, I don't know if this is directly answering what you are saying but with the idea of over diversity, right, like a lot of these pre-colonial fractal systems of architecture of like hair making, of like, organizing family, like family unit, like family spaces, right? A lot of it…. Yes. Right. Just from, you know, what I've been learning, a lot of it wasn’t., you would think that it will be over diverse because it's so replicated, but it's still somehow stuck to is foundational principle that thing was still always there at the core. And I'm interested in understanding the mechanics of that, how does this? and you go, you go here, you go here and go, here it’s the same thing Pretty much, without anybody saying this is how we did it, we sat down one day to say BOOM. Do you understand? so I'm interested in…, and even somehow like, asking those questions, and being interested in understanding it seems like ‘no guy, you don't have to…. That’s just how it is o’

Sheila: When you think about formula? Like part of why I think sometimes even… how do I frame this, it is like the woman we were interviewing and every time we asked her like, if you do this really spoil? And she's like It depends on what God wants, if God wants it. Sometimes that's how people keep the formula without even knowing they're keeping the formula by sort of reaching a point where they say, this is the point that I don't know, because nobody seems to know it. It's like that and which leads to all those other kind of myths about the woman broke too much cloud from the sky and when she broke too much clouds. The sky moved away. And then that's why you know, we're so far away from grace, which is almost very close to the biblical story of like, eating from the tree of knowledge. And then our eyes… almost like, if you know too much, it cuts the mystery off and the mystery is part of why we came down to be human beings.

Oroma: Yeah.

Sheila: So, I think sometimes of course, there is that desistance because it's like him now seeing Abubakar’s page and being like, oh, my God, look at how much we saw. We showed him another dyers page who is able to measure and able to scale. And then the guy was just, he was he was quiet for a while and was thinking about his life. So, on one hand, I could definitely see that. Yeah, his life, he was probably thinking about how his life could be better. But then, me on the other hand, looking at this stuff about like, oh, what's mystery preserves? In a way it also feels like the luxury of being nostalgic about a life that is not my own.

Oroma: Yeah.

Uzoma: Some would ask how much of a luxury that is

Sheila: I mean, I think it's definitely….

Oroma: I think it's a very delicate balance that we all have to strive towards, because you definitely need precision to grow and at the same time, you need ability to grow in a different way, you know,

Sheila: Any essential truth is paradox, we need a lot…

Uzoma: Balance

Sheila: Oh, yes, we need a balance.

Uzoma: I just said balance

Sheila: But the balance comes in, Sometimes I think the balance is more in considering the two than being like, settled on the one. I don't think that I would ever get to that point in balance where I'm like, I know the perfect formula is like, I know that this is where I've left out. So that next time I'll go back here, which means I'll lose out on like this, but that's, I think that's even connected to the accuracy of time sometimes that when you leave a time to be like, when the sun goes down, you can approximate but it is five, if you come 5:05 you start apologizing you start being sorted This, you start regretting.

Uzoma: I love that

Sheila: But when the sun goes down, it can be like oh the sun is going down, it hasn’t gone down.

Oroma: Yeah.

Uzoma: Um, I feel like this is a good place to jump in. Oroma especially you've thrown in some very interesting words that have captured me. So, words like locality, technology, skill, accuracy measurements formulas precision and flexibility. In thinking about time, these words have been words I have been thinking…. I don't actually have any question I'm just hoping these lands. That’s fair now.

Yes, I'm hoping it does. Yeah. So, these are words that I've been thinking about as well. Because in this research where, you're reading arrow of God now and I'm sure even if you haven’t gone far, you already know that proverbs are a very big part of the book, and just of the society that is depicted in the book. Proverbs are how they, it’s a technology that they use, it is like the foremost technology that they use to understand their lives, and you know, pass it down to the, you know, future generations, condense their wisdom, all of that stuff. Um, those proverbs also, because the society, we've already said that it kind of exists outside of this modern-day perception of time, those proverbs sort of like, encapsulate that as well, those programs almost exist outside of time as well like they are timeless. And, yeah, they are timeless. so, I've been thinking about, I've been very interested in reconsidering our relationship to time, sort of like, trance, like bringing those proverbs to today. Like, we're not just saying, “oh, here are the proverbs that we used to use guys like, go and learn them let’s start saying them” and stuff? But What is the wisdom behind those proverbs? How did the derive those proverbs, how did they come to those proverbs? Why did they consider it important, like, what is the thing that is inspiring them? And like, how can we, take that thing and condense it? Or like, use it, you know, and share with communities you know, it's kind of like, I'm thinking of this as, how can we… it is like self-generating wisdom. How can we have like a thing that generates wisdom for us today, and tomorrow, forever and ever. And I've been taking a very… like this seems like such a technological or mathematical thing to do. And I'm taking that approach. Sheila and I have been thinking about this and talking about this and taking that approach to it. And I guess the question is, I want to know, connected to what you were saying about…, this came up when Sheila asked a question about, like going to Mars and our region. And then You mentioned understanding locality. Like, I want to know how…. What do I want to know? I want to know how….

Sheila: That effort.

Uzoma: What do you think? First. Like, what do you think about…?

Sheila: …sort of like, almost a year to Chris,

Uzoma: Thank you.

Sheila: Since we are talking about precision and how precision is like where things can grow from, when they grow up they sort of formula is there, we are trying to Formularize, we are trying to mine these proverbs for their formula to Okay, go back and say based on what proverbs have been made, this is what it takes to make it proverb a proverb, which means that we can make many more Proverbs if We know this formula, and we're just thinking that, okay on one hand, that seems lowly and progressive But on the other hand as in, what if we're now putting these constraints that we learned from our side about how to make something more precise but precision with…

Uzoma: Constraints,

Sheila: Something about them? But is there Miss?

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: What do you think?

Oroma: I mean, what keeps coming to my head, the more that both of you speak is, two things come to my head, or one thing comes to my head in like in Greek mythology, the concept of time, there's two ways of explaining time. There's Kairos and there is Chronos. Chronos is more of like the quantitative time, which is like two o'clock. February, it's like it is a thing used to measure right? And Kairos is more like time that is relative to things. And it's more about time that is like a season. Or an opportune time or like a system that.

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: …is perfect because of how we found it. Yeah. So, Kairos is more qualitative. It's like, what time is it? It's either one o'clock, or it's lunchtime?

Sheila: Yeah. Yeah.

Oroma: One o'clock is Chronos and lunchtime is Kairos.

Sheila: Also shout out to Loyola Jesuit for giving us Kairos retreat, you know we are all LJC alumni

Oroma: You guys didn’t have Kairos retreat?

Sheila: You go somewhere for like, three days or something? And then they have programs

Oroma: So where did you go?

Sheila: We went to, just outside school still in Abuja but like.

Oroma: Are you serious?

Sheila: Unless I am forgetting, and then they gave us Kairos Cross.

Oroma: Oh, I think I know what you are talking about but we didn't do it in our time.

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: Oh, that was Kairos.

Sheila: Uzoma did you do Kairos?

Oroma: Exactly yeah

Uzoma: I do in Kairos yeah, they told us it was God’s time, which is more or less what Oroma is saying.

Oroma: You know, its God's time, because it can be described as God’s time because God time is the time things is perfect or something. So, you can be trying something your whole life, but like, and in ways of thinking about it, people will say that the life the time says, the difference chips have been laid, and it happens. And there's this really interesting way of even describing Kairos that is like, weeping. So, like, you know, the moments where things seem to be.

Sheila: Perfect.

Oroma: That’s Kairos.

Sheila: Oh, that's beautiful.

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: That's such a beautiful thing, because I really know that there is a perfect time.

Oroma: When you are weaving there’s…. in the process there’s a point where you throw the spindle through, goes from one end to the other. And in that point, when you can add a new line of yarn, that is specific time where you can do that thing.

Sheila: Like a specific opening

Oroma: Yes, it’s an opening. So that's what I am thinking about when you guys are talking about going through things because it’s about measuring it’s about precision but it's also about understanding what is around you, and understanding that it's a season for everything, and it's a time for everything and kinda just apply that to whatever it is that you're doing.

Sheila: When do you think that in your life recently, you sort of like had to relearn or reunderstand that perspective?

Oroma: I mean, I think with this is us, I really, really like I can't remember a specific time that.., this is something that probably had an issue for a while I just think that things really, really started for this is us and I think I hadn't been opportune to be out to be able to focus on it on its own before that, but I genuinely feel like there's something about that time that was perfect in the sense that I needed to drop Roland and I needed to drop orone and I needed to let go of those two things and they needed to be at a point where I was comfortable enough to not be thinking about them. But also, with osi also comfortable enough to do his different projects, he is never thinking about where to… he is never struggling with job. But just how the entire equation kind of aligned for all of us. That meant that I basically can understand why it's basically like threefold or like you. So, in 2020 because so many things had kind of been lining themselves up and open up. And then 2020 came and it was just like, perfect.

Sheila: Yeah. That reminds me of like, they're they're just is growing. So, it's growing its little vine, but then I got worried that the vine was growing and then there were no leaves from vine. So, I was like what kind of impotent plant is this, because I sniffed it at the bud, I cut it and then I came and I was telling Oroma, and Oroma was like no no no no no, the use are the roots you have to let this thing grow, they would start creating leaves, but they kind of like have to intertwine almost like creative community

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: You may not understand that the way monster grows is that it looks like it's not growing for a very long time and then it just shoots and it starts growing really quick. And if you're not understanding what's going on, you don't understand that all of those roots are like what is going to lay the...

Uzoma: Yeah

Sheila: That wouldn’t be my choice of a plant because of that, like, that's what I was going to say. I was saying a plant that doesn't look like it's growing. But then eventually grows. Because I'm always like, I had slow puberty. Like, I really didn't like in my head, I didn’t have a promising person. Like from my own version of myself. And then, all that time where I was sort of like

Oroma: Rooting?

Sheila: I was rooting in something so that when I now am myself, and people are like how did you? I’m like you don't understand all the ways that I had to sort of like really say, this is what I believe in like all slow puberty was really just swimming in a sea of options, and nothing fitting except the one that fits. And like when it fits like a glove then I just shut because all the other ones, isn't like I didn't try but they were not going anywhere. So that time of slow puberty was almost like getting on different horseback’s and being thrown off, getting on different horsebacks and being thrown off. And then when you find your horseback, it's like all the things that you guys have already been setting you don't even look back because you've done that you've experienced the idea of these. It's time.

Oroma: Yeah, it's time

Sheila: It’s time.

Oroma: So, there's this, Uzoma do you know about the Paulo Santos story? or fragrance or smell or incense sticks, basically chip blocks of wood right? And they're just from this tree. And the interesting thing about the tree is that it has the natural smell, and you can’t get that natural smell unless that tree dies by itself. Not only does it die by itself, it has to lie in its death on the floor for I can't remember how many years, it's over five years, like almost 10 years, you literally have to allow it to lie in state for a really long time. And if you don't do any of these two things, and you cut up the tree and all of that it doesn't have the smell

Sheila: Doesn't give you the scent

Oroma: it doesn't give you the scent.

Sheila: Which is actually crazy because when humans die, it smells so bad. like we rot

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: We smell like crap. But look at when a plant is dying it can get…. yet humans think that we’re the shit. It is so confusing to me. It’s so unfortunate.

Oroma: And that’s a day plants life, if we think about the concept of time and does it end when we die? because you can see that for this tree. It continues

Sheila: And if you don't have perspective, you will take initial stage as waste, if you don't have perspective of what a thing can be you can easily call it waste because it's not reaching the intention, we are designed for it.

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: I remember going to Osun State. And we saw this tree and, in the afternoon, it was just like brown kennels or whatever then we came out in the night to just dance in the forest. And then Demi called me and was like Sheila come and look at this, off to the tree, on the floor, just these little bulbs glowing green, like lime green.

Oroma: Wow

Sheila: And I was like ah ah what’s going on here. The whole place was surrounded by this lime green growth in the ground, I picked it up. They were just like, just seeds that were glowing

Oroma: What, from the tree?

Sheila: And I try to take a picture, whenever I put my phone, it would stop glowing.

Oroma: Have you ever tried to take a picture of glow in the dark?

Sheila: Yeah, it’s true. We all came, we laid down at the tree, we hugged the tree, I wrote a poem for the tree. Because it wasn't until the next. I was trying to figure out what it was and the next morning when I saw the brown things I now realized, oh my god, it's the brown things that look like they've fallen from the thing.

And I think the sun probably charges it with something

Oroma: Can you imagine what asset is in that tree?

Sheila: As in.

Oroma: And at the right time, what does it do?

Sheila: It glows, it fucking grows. Another thing is that if you're raking it, you will think, let me rake off all this and so we may not actually know what the. Because what brought us to the story of the tree was what It had shed.

Uzoma: I think it also speaks to Kairos as well, that you don’t just discover things, things have to sort of line up.

Sheila: And you have to make yourself open for things to present themselves to you.

Oroma: And you have to also be ready to know the season, Kairos is a season,

Uzoma: Be open, yes.

Oroma: Like you can't expect it to be all the time,

Sheila: Which means that if you also live in that state of like, pursue accuracy constantly, you don't get to experience your Kairos time because if you're just living at 2pm 2pm 2pm and you are not taking lunchtime, you wouldn’t really…it is like what you do with your calendar,

Oroma: You stop thinking about time in a more flexible way to be able to understand when there's an opportunity

Sheila: Exactly. You think about what's wasting your time or what you're producing with your time. Any form of not producing becomes a waste of time. And so, you're not even comfortable enough to be like, oh what’s this scent? Oh my god. Is it coming from this stem? let me cut it and let me try and see what like happens. Exactly.

So Uzoma What was your question Again? I can't remember. Hello Uzoma, we had a serious interruption.

Uzoma: Yeah. It happens.

Sheila: Yes. Oroma is looking for a proverb.

Uzoma: In the book?

Sheila: Yes.

Uzoma: Okay. When it comes up, we were saying?

Oroma: Yeah, so we were talking about time. Time in terms of accuracy and precision and time in terms of proverbs. And how time is I guess how you can use the concept of time to create covered

Sheila: Yes

Oroma: Or extend the culture of creating proverbs?

Sheila: Time is ingredient almost in making proverbs.

Oroma: Yes, time is the main ingredient to making proverbs

Uzoma: Then also the other side of that, that Proverbs illustrate a certain understanding of time, like they manifest a certain understanding of time

Sheila: You can only be someone who's speaking in proverbs when you know people have time to listen to, hear you and understand. Imagine giving proverb in a meeting and people are like, excuse me sir, it’s 5:45

Oroma: Um so I think it's quite beautiful, time within Proverbs, because it's just the foundation for the Proverbs usually. I was trying to find one proverb just so we can see how. it's usually based off of an understanding of what's happened around a particular time or something like that or an understanding of like… there's like everybody knows…

Sheila: Shares that, this is what should happen when this time.

Oroma: Common knowledge.

Sheila: Yes, it’s common knowledge. Do we have common knowledge now in this day and age?

Uzoma: Hmmm question. I think I want to say we do.

Oroma: Yeah, we do. But it's mostly we're relying more and more on technology to have common knowledge.

Uzoma: Yes, yes.

Sheila: How?

Oroma: Google

Sheila: Fair enough. It’s a lot said

Uzoma: Even, I'm thinking of like social media.

Sheila: I'm thinking of social media.

Uzoma: I am thinking of Twitter.

Sheila: And yeah, like Twitter, particularly like how Sometimes even in my life, like when a situation comes up relationship wise, I just hear all the tweets that people have said about like, what to do in the kind of relationship like, this is where you leave. This is what shows up to show you that this is the thing. And people have complained a lot about why people think that real relationships are Twitter relationships, but at the same time you also people that are thankful that Twitter has warned them about certain things. But as well Twitter is so wide, there are Nigerians that are tweeting about Nigeria, from England or from Scotland. But then they're also African Americans who are tweeting, because you can't hear the accents of the language, but you can just, you can hear something. And then you have all these spheres of Twitter, but at the same time, it's just it tweets that someone has landed into your thing and has affected your version of common sense. But is the world that accessible for us to be sharing, like, solutions for the same problem?

Oroma: It is crazy. So, what I'm thinking about right now is, it's crazy that at the time where there were no lots of tools for communication, and people were more or less like, distant for to explain, like an Igbo village for instance, you only see the two hundred people that live around cause you're not traveling to see or you're not speaking to anybody on the phone. It's crazy that in those times, common knowledge was more of a thing. But at the same time, it's not too crazy to think about it, it's kinda obvious why but we're so diverse that we notice the things that are like, the common knowledge is more obvious,

Sheila: You mean as the village like in the 200 people?

Oroma: Yes, there not just for the entire Igbo culture. And that's because like, even though we're all so different and we are all over the place

Sheila: Everybody must agree.

Oroma: Everybody agrees on t certain things

Sheila: Yes yes

Oroma: Things that are more like there's no formula anymore. And it's crazy that technology is doing the opposite of what we thought it was, it should do because it's bringing together so many different voices that there's actually now no formula, there is no common knowledge, because there's no common location and no common…So if I drop a proverb, the African American tweeting about Nigeria, from America is definitely not going to understand what I am talking about because

Sheila: But is it not our assumption that they might not understand? because what if the knowledge is so common, like, people do understand it, overseas. It's like thinking about how we had to translate. Like how we were reading Enid Blyton books with acorns and shit like, sure, I didn’t know what an acorn was but I knew when it was winter, it was time for this particular food to drop,

Oroma: So at least you understood that it had to do with winter.

Sheila: Because the book will tell me it has to do winter as in the book… if you read a few of them, then you know what, you have an idea of what winter is. It's something that snow falls in this time. And if snow falls in this time, like that's what they call winter. And these are the kinds of activities they do. So, their own proverbs which might not have been packaged in the way our own is but like, their proverbs being say their way of living. I started to understand the formula of this is what the story did that last time, and this is what the next one did. So, I can assume that in the third one, it will still do it. So, I think sometimes as well. I feel like it's harder for people out there to understand me but what made It easier than them. Because when they came, they did not even explain themselves to me, they just dropped the books I'm reading.

Oroma: They understand that they understand. So so maybe we should do a culture, you know, maybe we should do drop our culture for them.

Sheila: That’s what I am wondering like, what's stopping us from just dropping our culture on them?

Oroma: Nothing. Uzoma, you need to get to that task of creating more proverbs using the concept of time.

Sheila: Yeah, how do you Oroma think your time is different from your parent’s time? And how do you think your time is different from Orones time?

Oroma: Well, I think, so definitely. I know that it has something to do with, the difference in Those three times have to do with the perception of time.

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: My parents time, partly because information was not as, what you call it? It was not

Sheila: Plentiful

Oroma: It was not as plentiful. You know, it's not that much access to information, things where slower things were definitely slower. Like if somebody wants to tell somebody in another city something they have to wait until they take a letter and it gets there, things just happen slower. So, the idea of time was much slower. How they found themselves in that time was completely different. Or the way that they saw themselves in that time was completely different from myself right now and even just seeing orone right now in my time, I understand that. What she is going to be in the future is just completely, I can never understand. she’s already moving much quicker in my time,

Sheila: How?

Oroma: She doesn't have any concentration span, she's talking like two minutes, five minutes, she moves, just keeps it moving so quick. She's so quick, she watches shows, so many shows at the same time.

Sheila: Yes, yes. I noticed that with my niece and nephew too.

Oroma: And she's watching everything

Sheila: Because it shows that they would come up with the box but under the box, you will just have the suggestions.

Oroma: Yes, exactly and she's jumping from one show to another like within minutes,

Sheila: Do you get worried about that?

Oroma: And that’s how Roland is as well, I don't get worried. No. I just think I mean, it's time. When the Time is changing what I do?

Sheila: …scared because,

Uzoma: Yeah, same

Sheila: As in like if in my time, I know that to have a life that's enjoyable means having a longer attention span, what’s the difference between allowing, not helping children develop a skill that helps you in your time with this understanding?

Oroma: You realize that in our parent’s time, they use to watch movies that we’re four hours long. How can you sit down watch a movie that is 4 hours long if it's not amazing? Well, now we just watch is 30 minutes done. I've downloaded all the information off.

Sheila: Sometimes I worry about getting to go and find four-hour movie, when I watch a movie that's like three hours, I feel so, that's why I have to leave. Because I have to consciously put myself in a slower time because the environment is not …

Oroma: That’s why you have books. I think it's important that we are reading, reading books, reading history books, reading books like arrow God reading you know…

Sheila: People say why we read a book, when you can come on Twitter? people say that now

Oroma: No no

Sheila: …just go on a thread and go on a thread like Instagram is making guides now. So why read a book? you send over from different times, but I think still to be that person who can smell this wood in the forest and be like, I wonder what this wood is? Let me go on. Let me go and see this.

Oroma: What are ways that modern technology encourages people to slow down? what do those look like? Are there any ways that one technology encourages apart from meditating?

Uzoma: I want to say that it's only when the tech is making the conscious and deliberate effort, like the DNA of. by default, modern technology does not know how to encourage you to do slow down

Sheila: Yes.

Uzoma: … prevailing design patterns actually encouraging you to do the opposites. But it’s only when they make it conscious like head play. But I also….

Oroma: Inexperience?

Uzoma: Yes.

Oroma: I was having an anxiety attack. I was really freaking out just about different things. And I had decided to do yin yoga. And I usually do yin yoga. And for some reason, like Normally, I would be excited about doing yin yoga and I'll do it but because I was dealing with like an experience that had me really panic and I couldn't even focus enough to do yin yoga. And so, I picked up my phone and what did I feel like doing instantly? I just felt a bit empty. Like I felt like I hadn't spoken to a lot of people. That usually mean a lot me. So, I just started reaching out to different people and just saying hi to lots of different people. And that's eventually how I was able to like? Yeah, that's what I did for 14 minutes. I was just chatting people up. random people I had been meaning to. And that was technology. I was just catching up. So that's the question as well is technology something that is there and we supposed to form our values that we now come and use technology? Or Is technology supposed to come with the sort of like, help us make it? Yeah. That we don't have to fight to instill our values. The values that are already in there.

Uzoma: Yeah

Oroma: And that’s not easily.

Sheila: Then the promise of technology is that technology is like regular life.

Oroma: Yeah, you are just supposed to use it to….

Uzoma: to help navigate,

Oroma: Navigate your regular life. Things are moving much faster. So, if you don't use it, you will be slow. If you don’t use it, you will not you may not. So, it's just there to help you keep up with the times

Sheila: The times. What are the times?

Oroma: The current set of time that you're in,

Sheila: So, everybody's orbiting around,

Oroma: Yes, everybody's orbiting around the pace, the season, trends, yeah that.

Sheila: That’s different from what’s the time? But the times like the conglomeration of time, but every time

Uzoma: Yeah.

Sheila: I don't know, man, this conversation, is how to end because anyway, we said we wanted to ask more questions than actually have more answers. And I definitely have a lot of questions after this. Because it's like, sometimes I don't know what to expect. I don't know what to hold technology accountable for.

Oroma: I think I'm happy with conclusion that we should use technology to navigate life without instilling our own values, like basically, uphold the values but use technology to navigate life around your value

Sheila: But what if technology doesn't even give you breathing space. For instance, on Instagram, if you want to be slow and you want to keep up with the marketplace, you want to make your money. We also still want to be slow; how do you bring those two values together, you want to be ambitious and survive, but at the same time, you don't believe that that’s the only place of survival

Uzoma: I think the challenge is that technology shouldn't be opinionated. But now it is. It should be…

Sheila: I'm just asking because that word should. What convinces you that’s it should not be opinionated?

Uzoma: Should is a strong word. If we're saying that it's the thing that you come through with your own bag. It should be a container for that. Right? That's like, Okay, this is how I am approaching It, this is the way I'm going to use it versus we come to it and then it's sort of on its own trying to sway you, trying to impose its own values on you like this….

Sheila: The reason I don’t know if technology should not be opinionated is that reading about, like the early technology like Nam June Paik. And the rest of them, they were very opinionated that they needed, as in the world needed to be more connected to each other, like, become extinct. So, it was opinionated for the value of freedom. Therefore, like the opinion, is part of the driving force that actually first and became what we have the internet. Like, I don't think we would have the internet without the passion of people's opinion. So maybe not the opinion that we're seeing now.

Uzoma: Right, okay. So, on one level by default, that's where, you know, we create with our own biases, whatever. So, by default, anything you're making, there’s going to be something informing it right? Well, I think what I'm trying to say is there is an it's like how there's a lot of studies being done and how like social media, for example, taps on a very primitive level of your psyche. Right? Because the people creating it are going. it's almost like a war. It's almost like they're going above and beyond to sway You in their direction, the level of neutrality is now so diluted that you coming to it with your own values, you’re almost always at odds with it because it's just this balance like, you know, they're really doing studies trying to get you. Do you understand? That’s too much. There is a level to it, and you need to check yourself.

Sheila: The only thing coming to mind is the saying, if you don’t want to cut your hair, don’t go to Loyola.

Uzoma: Yeah

Sheila: If you don't want to do this, maybe don't come to Instagram. And I don't know. I don't know what I think about that.

Oroma: I tell you what, I think that technology also…

Uzoma: There is a joke,

Oroma: Have you guys looked at screen time?

Sheila: Oh yes screen time.

Oroma: That's screen time. Check your screen time, it’s important. And you can actually like, manage your screen time using technology.

Sheila: But some people don’t want to check cause ignorance me too sometimes.

Oroma: You can set the number of how much time you are allowed to be on Instagram. did that originally when I got my new phone? Now I don't need anymore because I don’t actually spend that much time on it. But like, it used to tie me up a shut it. I have to literally allow click the button to say I want more time here.

Sheila: Which is your value of like, discipline,

Oroma: You know your value; it is your value that used to set how long on Instagram

Sheila: It’s the values that sets you to download screen time.

Oroma: It's your value that makes you use it.

Sheila: Thank you

Oroma: Exactly. And then when you now press that you want to continue, that’s your discipline, it is failing you.

Sheila: Yeah.

Oroma: So I think…

Sheila: That's now hard question. Because people will now say like, what about people that are born with different levels of blah, blah, blah, what happens to them? You delete it. That’s what Osione Does. People who are serious about controlling things like that just delete it. Because at some point that’s the only thing you can do. Right? So once again, we're still saying that like there's citizens choice that they producers of this technology, they shouldn't take majority of blame. That it is not their fault that the product is I at your own peril.

Uzoma: I have a slight problem with that line Because I don't know, Spider Man With great power comes great responsibility. My God, we should recognize that

Oroma: Yes, yes

Uzoma: You should recognize that so, I don’t want to let Instagram off the hook, they know what they are doing, they know that they are fucking people out here.

Sheila: I think maybe that comes to the certain acceptance sometimes like that's what I'm a capitalist

Uzoma: That’s why you have to eat the rich. I just think that brings me back to thinking about progress and standing outside of our present-day time to really rethink just how we're organizing our lives and seeing and structuring in our lives there's a need for more values generally

Oroma: Yeah

Sheila: That's why yes help right like they just get a sneak sneak the valleys into like that lesson.

Oroma: I like that.

Sheila: 23 minutes into I think, Oroma do you have any closing words.

Oroma: No

Sheila: But thank you so much for being awesome. I had a blast, I love to rub minds and chats about random important stuff.

Oroma: You’ve come to the right place.

Sheila: I always stop and it's just it's dizzy.

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