Xanthippa's Chamberpot

Time, what is ‘time’? 

Objectively speaking, time is an aspect of the space-time continuum within which we exist… at least, to the best of our limited observations!!!  :0)

The neat thing about time is that we can only perceive it in one dimension…and even that, rather imperfectly.  This is reflected in the ages old saying (which my husband claims comes straight from Confucius….):  ‘A man with two watches never knows what time it is!’

We do measure the human experience in time, and nowadays, we have way better ways of measuring time than they had back in the wise sage’s days.  One could spend years ruminating on the causes:  were we created this way?  Had the natural alternation between light and dark periods caused us to evolve this way?  But I am going off on a tangent here…..forgive me.

The observed reality is that we, humans, have an ‘internal clock’ – our circadian rhythm.   And though it is not always perfect (yes, mine seems to be set onto a 100, rather than a 24 hour period – I’ve always been a ‘metric girl’), it does affect us in many ways that are not obvious at a first look. 

We are all aware it affects our sleep patterns, but it also affects our appetite, ability to reason and our ‘clumsiness’ (I don’t like to use the term ‘dexterity’, for obvious reasons), plus a few more.  Just remember the last time you were jet-lagged:  your head seemed to be in a haze and you bumped into things until you adjusted.

But, being humans, and living in a global village, we need to ‘normalize’ our experience in order to ‘fit it’ into the framework of our society.  That is OK, and much of this can indeed be good.  To help us co-ordinate our actions, since the earliest dawns of civilization, humans have created conventions for defining specific points in time. 

The earliest of these were simple:  dawn and sunset, one sunset (or dawn) to another measured one day.  Then we got fancy….observed the solstices, equinoxes, lunar phases….and worked all these things into calendars.  Even today, we measure ‘years’ in terms of Earth’s path about the sun; our ‘months’ are solar bastardizations of the lunar cycle.  Both the ancient Egyptians and the Mayas had a neat calendar, which considered the solar and lunar cycles….defining an ‘era-year’ by their co-incidence.  Pretty sophisticated…..

And just as we define the year, the solstices and equinoxes in natural terms:  our planet’s motion within the solar cycle, so we define the period we call ‘day’.  Since, in our early history, we noticed that the light/dark periods were not identical in length, and thus only useful in a ‘rough’ definition of ‘day’, we have defined ‘noon’ as the point in time when the sun was most directly overhead’, as demonstrated by the ‘shortest shadow’.  Because this point was exactly half way between he dawn and the sunset (which are variable, unless one were directly on the equator), we have called it ‘mid-day’.  Half-a-revolution later, we call ‘mid-night’.  And, noon to noon or midnight to midnight is defined as ‘one day’; or, if you prefer, one day is 24 hours, or 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds….  These seem like clear and logical definitions, firmly grounded in natural observations.

So, why is it that we are so ready to abandon these sound traditions?  Why are we turning our backs on nature?  Or, if you prefer, why are we turning our backs on our creator’s divine order?

This weekend, we are ready to ignore the natural/divine order, turn our backs on millennia of accurate definitions, and turn back the clock…..at the whims of a few political overlords!!! I speak of nothing less than the folly called ‘daylight savings time’!

Oh, the reasons given for the establishment of ‘daylight savings time’ are numerous….and bogus.  All of these aims could easily be achieved by establishing ‘summer business hours’ – while leaving the natural/divine order undisturbed. 

After many years of this misguided practice, there are hundreds of scientific studies that demonstrate that every ‘clock change’, the population undergoes a real and observable ‘jet lag’:  accidents (both industrial and automotive) occur more, with more fatalities as a result (sufficiently greater numbers so as to be statistically significant), there is a measurable decrease in productivity… and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

And what for?  Some imagined monetary savings?  Are human lives really that cheap?

Or is the motive for imposing ‘daylight stupid time’ quite different….is it a demonstration from our political masters of just how completely they control us?  After all, it was first imposed during a war histeria…..when people are most ammendable to political coersion – and we’ve never managed to rid ourselves of it.

So, is it a power trip, designed to demonstrate the politicians hold greater influence over our lives than nature, or a divine creator?  Because they can indeed impose an artificial system to override the reasonable, natural/divine one?  And make us believe they are doing us a favour? 

I certainly don’t know.  That is why I’m asking the questions….