Passage of Time

A bit of long read on the need to reclaim time, but there are some interesting insights

Time has also become completely disconnected from the very celestial bodies clocks were first developed to track. Can you look at the time and know where the sun is without looking for it, or when the moon will rise tonight and what phase it will be in? Probably not. Time now is a measurement of chronological distance to work or a meeting, the imminence of waking or the imperative of sleep.

That is, clock-time no longer measures our temporal relationship to nature, but instead regulates our daily activities in relationship to capitalism. Clocks tell us when we need to go to work, when it’s time for lunch, when we need to wake up, when we really should go to sleep. We don’t do those things when we want to, we do them when others have determined they should be done. Those others aren’t the sun, stars, planets and moon of the pagan and animist worlds, but the bosses, the owners, the managers, and the bankers for whom we work.

Reading this reminded me of R, our domestic help back when I was a kid in India. She was illiterate and the mother of four young kids. I don't think she knew how to read the clock. She would, however, look up at the sky and tell me what time it was with a precision of about fifteen minutes. As a child, I was fascinated by her ability often asked her the time just to see how good her estimate was. There was something peaceful about this lack of precision that guided her life. She was mostly on schedule but never a slave to it. An hour gained or lost in the day would never have terminal consequences for her.