When a party falls silent…

'The ancient Greeks had different gods for time's different aspects (including the god of the moment for weeding, the god of the moment of horses panicking, the god of the moment when a party suddenly falls silent). One of the most important was Chronos who gives his name to absolute time, linear, chronological and quantifiable. But the Greeks had another, far more slippery and colourful, god of time, Kairos. Kairos was the god of timing, of opportunity, of chance and mischance, of different aspects of time, the auspicious and not-so-auspicious. Time qualitative.'

Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time, Jay Griffiths