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I Learned to Lie by Listening to Clocks (villanelle)

A villanelle exploring the relationship between time and perception.

status: Finished

Status Indicator

The status indicator reflects the current state of the work: - Abandoned: Work that has been discontinued - Notes: Initial collections of thoughts and references - Draft: Early structured version with a central thesis - In Progress: Well-developed work actively being refined - Finished: Completed work with no planned major changes This helps readers understand the maturity and completeness of the content.

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certainty: certain

Confidence Rating

The confidence tag expresses how well-supported the content is, or how likely its overall ideas are right. This uses a scale from "impossible" to "certain", based on the Kesselman List of Estimative Words: 1. "certain" 2. "highly likely" 3. "likely" 4. "possible" 5. "unlikely" 6. "highly unlikely" 7. "remote" 8. "impossible" Even ideas that seem unlikely may be worth exploring if their potential impact is significant enough.

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importance: 5/10

Importance Rating

The importance rating distinguishes between trivial topics and those which might change your life. Using a scale from 0-10, content is ranked based on its potential impact on: - the reader - the intended audience - the world at large For example, topics about fundamental research or transformative technologies would rank 9-10, while personal reflections or minor experiments might rank 0-1.

Information

Opening Remarks

This villanelle is one of my first attempts at writing a villanelle since highschool. It is inspired by the idea of time, and the way humans fundamentally perceive it. People overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year.

Opening Line

To start our iambic flow, I chose the line "I learned to lie by listening to clocks".

I learned to lie by listening to clocks

Ideation

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Citation
Yotam, Kris · Jul 2025

Yotam, Kris. (Jul 2025). I Learned to Lie by Listening to Clocks (villanelle). krisyotam.com. https://krisyotam.com/blog/literature/i-learned-to-lie-by-listening-to-clocks-villanelle

@article{yotam2025i-learned-to-lie-by-listening-to-clocks-villanelle,
  title   = "I Learned to Lie by Listening to Clocks (villanelle)",
  author  = "Yotam, Kris",
  journal = "krisyotam.com",
  year    = "2025",
  month   = "Jul",
  url     = "https://krisyotam.com/blog/literature/i-learned-to-lie-by-listening-to-clocks-villanelle"
}

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