After 48 years on Earth, I still become confused twice a year when we change the clocks.
“It’s really five o’clock, it just says six.” We do that for about a week, right?
Although the bill is stuck in congress for now, it is expected to pass, and when it does, the practice will be eliminated and we will simply live with the clock how it is. I wonder, though, when and if we will become used to it.
I think of the first Christmas Eve after we don’t change the clocks, and am curious if we will notice. I choose that day because it’s the one when we have certain traditions which revolve around time: Christmas Eve at a favorite uncle’s house, or Midnight Mass in the city. What does Santa think of all of this? Has anyone even consulted him? And New Year’s Eve, will we celebrate at midnight then cock our heads a bit and say “hmmmmm?” It will take, well, time.
What is time, though? No, I’m not getting into a deep-dive of the philosophical definition of the word, but I have to mention what we all know; It does not exist in the natural world. Time is something people made up a very, very long time ago to keep us all in line. I suppose a clock and calendar are helpful. I’m some kind of hippie at heart, but I’m not anti-time. I mean, how else would we know when to have a Zoom meeting or to say “Happy Birthday” to a dear friend?
We take time and give time and tell time, and we let it control us. I was proud of myself for waking so early this morning, then thought the lighting was weird and realized right away that the clocks changed, some on their own, others lingered until I pressed their dusty buttons. We’re such an organized species, and although it’s stifling at times, I suppose I support the concept of time. Daylight saving time, not so much. What an odd practice to begin back in 1916. What an even odder practice to continue.
#passthebill
Teresa Forester Adams 