This weekend Daylight Savings time takes effect for the season. Such a strange concept. Probably outdated by now for its original purpose, (helping farmers, or something) but very much a profound symbol of perception and our power to change same on a massive scale.
Think about it. You tell a whole nation, (with a few exceptions in the Midwest) to literally move their clocks ahead by one hour early Sunday morning, and bingo. It is actually no longer the same time of day. One day stores just open, alarms go off, shifts end, all at a different moment in the day than previously, as measured by the position of the earth relative to the previous day. But because we all decide, "okay, that moment will as of now, be called 6:00AM as opposed to 5:00AM for a while" we have effectively changed time itself, as far as our perceptions are concerned.
Clocks do not cause time of course. They are mere machines that are designed to move in a certain pattern by which we can assign a numerical value to a specific moment, or collection of moments in our day, thus organizing our activities. Clocks are a 100% human construct. Yet by use of clocks we break down into bite sized pieces the very natural, inevitable advance of our lives, and the lives of our cities, our nations, and the world and universe even. Time keeping as we understand it is a means by which we turn a transcendent or even Divine concept into daily knowledge.
Just like that.Twice a year. Once forward, and once backward. And we go on with our day with ease afterward.
It works because clocks, whether digital, analog, or even a sundial, are perception. A universal agreement to observe something as inexplicable as time in a very human, understandable way. A way that, twice a year we alter entirely simply by pressing a button, or turning the lever on the simplest of machines by 360 degrees.
As a society, we actually declare that it is no longer 5:00AM, by an act of "freewill". (Though of course if you opt out of it, you will be late for everything the rest of your life. But you get my point.)
So imagine what that says about the power of perceiving. The abilities we have as people to change our reality and come at things from a totally different angle. The paradigm shifts we can cause, for good or for bad, on both the individual and global levels, just by deciding we are going to define something in a different way. See it in a new light. Determine that our thoughts can in many ways give birth to a reality limited only by what we decide to think and see.
Yes, I will lose an hour of sleep on Sunday. But pondering the other truth behind this strange ritual more than makes up for that I think.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
About the universal agreement you write here; In the state where I live there are those who desperately want the extra hour at the end of the working day and those who would prefer to have daylight at the start of the day. After a referendum where the vote was against daylight saving our local government put in place a 3 year trial anyway (hmmmm). After the trial the vote came back no again. So nationally there are only 2 states against daylight saving and we are one. It is a sticking point with many and the arguments are curious. I admit I am against it because I hate rising in the dark and an extra hour of heat at the end of the day.
The three year trial was tiresome for the reasons you write here-time shifted and gave birth to a new reality where our family became non-exercisers because we lost daylight in the morning hours prework and school.
Post a Comment