Punctuality is not just about respecting schedules.

It is often a fear of not being expected, an obsession with controlling, or even getting ahead of time.

In the era of the instantaneous, our society wants to be flexible but it requires us to be reactive on social media, to watch for opportunities, to walk ten thousand steps a day… As if time were limited, as if ‘We had to seize it before it was too late.

What if there was another punctuality? Looking for the right time rather than the exact time would mean finally finding the time for the other, for second chances, for the self. And respond to what really urges us to act: the distress of those who need us, the ecological emergency, the need to hope in a world that acceleration seems to have deprived of meaning.

Thibaut Sallenave, former student of the École Normale Supérieure de la rue d’Ulm, associate professor of philosophy, has a doctorate from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne