I came across an article today that was speaking about time. But before I get into the contents of the article (which I may not even go that far in depth with) I wanted to explain to you my thoughts of time. My pet peeves with time. And my personal understanding and actual concept of time well spent.
Time is something that we all live by. Time is a number. That is it. It is a fictional number that is different on every clock you look at. Like right now, my iPhone clock says it’s 9:07. My laptop clock says that it is 9:09 and the clock on the microwave across the living room says that it is 9:04. But does that much time really matter? A few minutes is not that big of a deal.
If that is the case then why do we get yelled at, and sometimes reprimanded for being only a few minutes late to work. Or how about what time your favorite TV show starts on Wednesday nights? Or when the latest blockbuster movie starts on Friday night. Everything we do is based on time. Even sports are based on time. You have 12 minute quarters, 15 minute halves, and 90 minute matches. Overtime (see the proper use of the word itself) if you need more to decide a winner. But again, in sports, it can come down to seconds, not minutes.
But what is time? Time, to me, is a fictional idea. We need eight hours of sleep a night to be functional. Well, no, we do not, because I sleep maybe five hours a night and I function just fine. You are supposed to only work eight hours a day. (Notice how anytime someone thinks about a full time job they say, “I work nine to five, just like the rest of us.” It all goes back to time.
But if I only worked eight hours a day I would not get half the stuff I do done. I am in the office at eight in the morning every day. I leave after five every day. I then go home and work another four or five hours. And when I close my laptop to eat dinner, to go see a movie, to meet a friend for coffee, or whatever the case may be, I feel like I need to get right back to work when I get home. I have an impossible understanding of those who only work eight hours a day.
Maybe that is why I get so much done. Maybe that is why I can work fifty hours a week for my obsession (that would be Imavex) and still be able to post a few articles a day for Indyconcerts.com and to write in my beloved blog (and you already know about that if you are reading this) to the late nights out hanging with friends. (They are truly my saving grace when it comes to my sanity. If it was not for my friends (and Sheryl) I would never leave my computer screen.
But back to time for a second. Time is actually something that I have been thinking a lot about lately. How much time I put in at the office to the time I spend cleaning my apartment to the time I have left on this earth. (I am not sure anyone has told you but every single one of us have a clock above our heads. We are on borrowed time from a higher power and one day, when that clock runs out, time is irrelevant anyway.) The other day I had a great idea. My idea (which will never happen because people are obsessed in their own rights with the time) would change the way the world works. It would change the way you sleep, the way you work, the way you party, and maybe even where you live.
My idea is so basic and so easy to accomplish that I don’t know why the reason I thought of this idea was ever created. I was speaking a while ago about my pet peeves and all the things that make me mad. (See a previous article to find the complete, well, not complete, list.) I currently live in Indiana. I am twenty-five years old and for my entire life, until a couple of years ago, our clocks never changed with this so called daylight savings time. I never really had an understanding of it until I had subscribe to it. But the basic understanding that I have is that every six months they, whoever they are, is going to take an hour away or give an hour back. You can be sitting in a bar having a cocktail with a group of friends, look at the clock, and it say 1:58 A.M. Run to the bar, grab another beverage, and head back to the table and it be 3:00 A.M. Now, wait a tick. Where did that hour go? Did I really wait in line that long to get my beer? No, of course not. The time changed to this stupid invention of day light savings.
But the article that I was reading basically summed up all the concepts of time and how they are perceived in the world. (Oh yeah, my idea is to have the entire world on one time. If it is 1:24 P.M. here, then in China, Poland, Australia, and L.A. it is the same time. I know you want to hear more but that is not the point of this post.) Like for instance, and this is one that I have direct experience with, is the way that most in Europe handle a day in the office.
In Europe, places like France, England, and Poland, folks get up and head to the office around nine or ten in the morning. That is not much different than here. But come lunch time, most will take a good two or three hour break and head to a restaurant or home for a full fledged meal. There are no (well there are, but not how they are used here) McDonald’s or Burger King with drive up windows. These workers will order a nice glass of wine or a fancy beer to start their meal. They then move to some cheeses or a soft meat appetizer to lead into their entree. Then comes dessert with a nice glass of red wine or a port to finish off the meal. (Yes, this seems like a bit much for lunch. But this is how it is handled every single day in these countries.) Then folks head back to work until five or six in the evening, pack it all in, and cities basically shut down. No twenty-four hour Walmart, or CVS pharmacy in these cities. Everyone heads out to dinner to repeat what they did for lunch but in two to three times the amount of time they spent that afternoon. Around ten or eleven people begin to trek home and do it all over the next day. Meals in Europe are not a matter of because we have to, but a matter of because we have to enjoy it.
(Of course, not every city or country is like this. It varies from city to city. But this is my experience in the countries that I have been.)
All in all I just wanted to get your mind thinking about time. Thinking about what times means to you and how you perceive it. Think about this for a minute and see how much time it takes you to come up with a solution to the fantasy ideals of time itself.
I think I know where you are trying to go with saying that time is just a number. Time, like a number, is immaterial. However I don’t think it’s the same thing as saying it’s not real. Time is like space. You can measure it but you’re not measuring a “thing” if that makes sense. You are not taking a measurement on an object that has mass so it makes it seem less real but it still exists in some sense. Time continues on whether we measure it or not. I’ve actually thought quite a bit about this (I’m kind of obsessed with the idea of time travel…) but of course I don’t know it all and I like to hear other people’s views.
As far as how we treat our work day as opposed to Europe I think in some ways it’s better and some ways not. I would be for a more relaxed work schedule but it doesn’t work for all jobs of course (I work at a help desk so we have to have at least some staffing 24/7 which kind of hinders the flexible schedule).
I don’t think the idea of the whole world being on the same time would work. It messes too much with people’s perception of time. People feel like midnight should be, well, the middle of the night or at least close to it. Also in some sense we already have a universal clock, GMT. Everything else is just a whole hour offset of it anyway (for the most part, a few places in the world have weird time zones). I think China is all on one time zone. It would be interesting to see studies on that to see how it affects people’s perception of time.
Ian M.