The more we synchronize ourselves with the time in clocks, the more we fall out of sync with our own bodies and the world around us.
The Tyranny Of Time
Don’t you want to break free out of the dictate of time, sometimes?
I do.
The thing is, I’m born into a family that eats because it’s time, not because we’re hungry. And that’s just one about so many things how we relate our lives around the clock.
From The Tyranny of Time:
We discipline our lives by the time on the clock. Our working lives and wages are determined by it, and often our “free time” is rigidly managed by it too. Broadly speaking, even our bodily functions are regulated by the clock: We usually eat our meals at appropriate clock times as opposed to whenever we are hungry, go to sleep at appropriate clock times as opposed to whenever we are tired and attribute more significance to the arresting tones of a clock alarm than the apparent rising of the sun at the center of our solar system. The fact that there is a strange shame in eating lunch before noon is a testament to the ways in which we have internalized the logic of the clock.
And have you noticed how your body yearns for sleep when it’s already dark outside? However, you stay awake (and watch another episode) just because the clock says it’s too early for bed.
It now seems embedded into our very psychology to view time as a commodity that can be spent or wasted.
The Tyranny Of Time
I think, deep inside, my humanity yearns for freedom from the concept of time we were taught since we were kids. How I long to be free from being guilty sitting around under the shade of the tree, thinking that we are wasting our time when we do.
From The Tyranny of Time:
There are more ways to arrange and synchronize ourselves with the world around us than the abstract clock time we hold so dear.
jessa 