NOW: I'm watching SIGNAL (2016), a South Korean
police drama with a connection to the spirit
world. So far it's quite good and I recommend it.
There is also a Japanese remake which seems pretty
faithful with only cultural differences.
Time, time, time See what's become of me
while I look around for my possibilities
-Paul Simon
My academic training was in Cultural Anthropology.
I recall once my wife and I were making dinner
plans with some Amish acquaintances (there is a
cultural wall that renders all meaningful use of
the word 'friend' inaccurate). My wife was saying
we'd see them at 5:30 when she paused and
corrected herself saying it would actually be more
like 5:35 or 5:40. Our host paused for a
perceptible three to six seconds while they
realized this brief distinction - between 5:30 and
5:40 - possessed meaning to us "English" and then
replied Okay.
Believe it or not, Amish society relies heavily on
our modern first world. It is certain that they're
current mode of life would not survive apart from
the English world - though they would have an
easier time adjusting to a pre-industrial paradigm
than we would. In many ways their society is in an
agrarian mode quite similar to pre-20th century
pastoral life.
Their rhythms, like those of an 18th century
colonizer-farmer or an Enlightenment French
peasant, do not require the hour - let alone the
minute or second. I feel their almost universal
ownership of mantle clocks and the ubiquity of
watches (wind-ups kept in a pocket with the band
removed) are a convenience for interfacing with
the English world.
The world you and I share is a world of time. Time
to wake. Time to make the train. Time to punch in.
Time for a break. Time to punch out. Time for
packaged entertainment. Time for sleep. We are
regimented by corporate masters in lock-step
precision lest we - the faulty cog - are replaced.
Since mid-March I have had the privilege of
adopting a new rhythm, one more recognizable to
the peasant than the modern man, and I cherish it.
I wake when I feel refreshed (still at around 5AM
- I'm not a Bohemian after all). I do quiet things
for an hour or so until my wife rises. Then we sit
and talk over coffee and toast until one of us
decides to begin the day's chores. House, garden,
shop... all options are open and we lean toward
one or the other based on need and the weather.
Are we hungry? Then it's mealtime. It's sunny.
Shall we eat outside? The sun is high and it must
be getting on noon. Ah, there's the fire whistle.
We live in an area where custom dictates that most
volunteer fire houses still sound their whistle at
a certain hour of the day, mostly at noon. We can
hear several on a good day from our smallholding.
The church bell has been supplanted with a
rotating air horn of obscene decibels. The
lock-step of the capitalists invading our
airspace. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's
quaint and coming from Queens I still find this
bucolic after three decades.
Never the less, it's there. Inescapable. As a
newly minted peasant I do not need this regimented
time... But I can't escape it. My phone has a
clock. My stove has a clock. My laptop is nothing
more than a very sophisticated clock with
swappable gears that can interact with the world
outside the case.
This new rhythm has allowed me to 'see' time...
and it's extraneous.
