Timeless

There are three human inventions that, in my opinion, have had an enormous impact on mankind.  These are the wheel, money and the measurement of time.  I might write about the wheel and money in the future but the focus of this blog post is time.  What is time?  Well that's actually not an easy question to answer and if you research some of the philosophical debates, you can convince yourself it doesn't exist.  But what do most certainly exist are the artefacts of man's measurement of time, including the watch that I am currently wearing on my wrist.  These devices are designed to give us a better understanding of the position of our location on the planet, relative to the sun as the world spins on its axis with a complete rotation every 24 hours.  Some devices also tell us where the planet is in relation to its orbit around the sun, which it completes every 365.25 days.  We have divided this travel into months, weeks and days.  Also, because 0.25 days is difficult to deal with, we have 365 days in most years but 366 days every fourth year, which we call a Leap Year.  Clever isn't it?!  These designations are purely artificial for man's benefit, and by the way, when I say "man's" I really mean "human's", there's nothing sexist implied there!  Trees, dogs, rabbits, mosquitos, fungi, fish,.... do not, as far as we know, need to measure time, at least not with the same resolution and accuracy as we do.

Imagine a world without time or more precisely, without the means (or perhaps desire) to measure time.  Ridiculous you might say, but my response is we are far outnumbered by species that don't measure time and they seem to manage quite well.  There again, the other species seem to exist comfortably without drugs, alcohol, tobacco, lethal weapons and wars, but that's also a topic for another time.  If you think you need to measure time to catch the train or plane, be 'on time' for work or know when to watch 'Match of the Day', consider whether you need to measure time to live or conversely, the measurement of time dictates the way you live.

The summer months are very hot here in Turkey, so from May through to October I don't wear a wrist watch, because it's too sweaty and uncomfortable.  To be honest, I don't miss it.  So why do I wear it in the winter?  Probably as a fashion accessory!  Don't get me wrong, I think there are huge benefits from man's invention of time measurement but whilst there are pros, there are also cons and the biggest con is our obsession with 'synchronised living'.  Interestingly there was a period of time when, as a young engineer, I designed digital electronic circuits.  I remember my first foray into this exciting world, when for some reason, I designed the circuits to operate asynchronously.  This means that when one operation completed, it would 'trigger' the next operation to commence and when that one completed, it would 'trigger' the next one and so on.  It was pointed out to me by a more senior engineer who was reviewing my progress, that asynchronous design was 'bad practice'  and 'best practice' was to design circuits that operate synchronously.  Synchronous circuits have a pulse generator, which is known as........wait for it........a CLOCK!  The clock synchronises all the various operations within the circuit.

I think that whereas most species on this planet tend to naturally live their lives asynchronously, something called TIME, or more precisely, man's measurement of time, forces the human species into synchronous living and in my opinion, a more stressful lifestyle.  I'm sure you've had experiences when you are really enjoying yourself only to be told that it's ten-to-three and you need to finish because you'll be late for whatever task was scheduled next.  So try for one day to forget the planned tasks and the schedules and just drift, asynchronously, from one unplanned event to the next - it's bliss!

I could write all day about this, but I haven't got time!!!!