It’s time to review our relationship with clocks
Print Edition
Tick … Tock … Tick … Tock … What a con, possibly the first con mankind has ever invented. You must have noticed it in the gongs of grandfather clocks, the beeps of digital clocks, and the clicks of analog clocks. They are deceiving. How can we quantify time with an instrument as irregular as a child banging on drums? Rather than ticking at precisely 60 beats a minute, clocks rush and drag indecisively.
Seconds can bulge and surge until each drop melds seamlessly into a violent river cascading past your eyes too slow to see each drop pass by. My legs always pump furiously down the court trying to shoot extra points during my 15-minute lunch games. I glance at the clocks after each shot to see how much time is left: 15 minutes, 13 minutes, 8 minutes, out of time. The harder I play, the faster their hands turn.
But just as easily moments can dry up your mind, allowing only a single second to plop each minute, each hour, or perhaps each day. In the last class right before Chinese New Year, I count each second until the clocks tick slower than me. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi … Trying to retain my consciousness, I envision firecrackers shrieking through the air and hot juicy dumplings that char your tongue. When will the bell release me?
My heart tires from trying to synchronize its beat with the irregular ticks of clocks. Perhaps it is about time for me to walk naturally to my beats, not the beats of a clock.
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