The Tyranny of the Ticking Clock: Temporal Pluralism as a Decolonial Solution to Burnout, Climate Fatalism, and AI Alignment

This paper presents a novel theoretical framework arguing that linear time consciousness, far from being a natural or universal human experience, represents a historically specific capitalist and industrial construct that has become pathological in contemporary society. Drawing on Henri Bergson's concept of durée, Indigenous cyclical temporal frameworks, and empirical evidence from burnout research, I propose "temporal pluralism" as a decolonial intervention capable of addressing three critical contemporary crises: workplace burnout, climate fatalism, and AI alignment challenges. Through rigorous analysis of cross-cultural temporal concepts, quantitative data on burnout correlations with time perspective, and theoretical modeling of AI temporal preferences, this work demonstrates that the hegemony of linear time creates systematic psychological, ecological, and technological pathologies. The paper concludes with a comprehensive policy framework for implementing temporal pluralism across institutional domains, offering a transformative approach to temporal organization that prioritizes human flourishing, ecological sustainability, and technological alignment over productivity maximization.