Measuring Time
That ‘time is based on the rotation of the earth around the sun [and] the rotation of the moon around the earth’ is quite clear. But how we should measure and judge that passage of time is less so. Throughout history, humans have measured time in all sorts of wonderful and mysterious ways.
In an Albert Camus novel, “The Plague,” an unnamed, old asthmatic is quarantined because of an outbreak of disease. Finding himself with nowhere to be, “he judged time, especially meal times […] by his two saucepans, one of which was full of peas when he woke up. He filled the other, pea by pea, with a single, regular and assiduous movement, [finding] his bearings through a day, measured saucepan by saucepan.” Nowadays, we find ourselves in, albeit different, similarly obscure circumstances. With always something to see, something to read and somewhere to be, we have begun to judge time by efficiency and productivity. And so, in a world where time has become qualitative, the old asthmatic is a welcome reminder that how we choose to measure the passing of time is entirely up to us.
Robert Rauschunberg, Third Time Painting (1961) via Rauschenberg Foundation
Humans have always sought to tell the time. Over the course of history, how we have done this has changed radically. In ancient Egypt, we used sundials and water clocks. Sundials use the position of the sun to tell the time. Water clocks, their nocturnal counterpart, measure minutes, hours, and days by the steady flow of water either in or out of a vessel. In ancient China, we used incense clocks and candles. The time it took for them to burn corresponded to a specific temporal period. We also used hourglasses, fire clocks, and moon clocks. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the mechanical clock was invented, until the 17th Century that the pendulum clock first appeared and finally until the 19th Century for the electrical clock to arrive. At first, they stood in the main squares of our villages, then they made their way into our pockets and later to our wrists. Each one of these methods marks a distinctly different way of telling the time – and coincidently way of living life. “Of all the triumphs of human ingenuity,” writes Scientific American, “the clock has probably had the greatest influence on how we think and behave.” Indeed, he who tells the time via the burning of candle wick experiences the world quite differently from he who has it in his pocket.
Salvador Dali, The Persistence of Memory (1931) via MoMA
The way we physically count time has not changed in a long while. But I do believe the way we measure and judge time has. I am sure that humans have always felt the pressure of the clock – whether that was a water one or indeed a mechanical one. But, unlike any other era ever, humans have never had access to so much information. We are able to follow and observe the lives of people from all over the world – all of whom are posting what they are doing, whether that be cooking, travelling, exercising, or promoting their businesses. At any given moment we could be studying, learning, researching, or developing a new skill. Any time spent not doing one of these things, not furthering yourself, becomes time wasted and time lost. The fact there are so many opportunities now means that time has become something to capitalize on and monetize, and so, something that can be misused, misplaced and spurned. In our era, the pressure of the clock has been magnified to a grotesque and extraordinary proportion. Time ceases to be a measure of seconds, minutes, and hours. It is a measurement of efficiency, success, and productivity. The way we judge time influences how we think and behave. It is no surprise then that depression rates amongst young people are higher than the norm and that people everywhere are “burning out.”
It is important to remember then that if we really wanted to, we could sit at home all day and, like our unnamed, old asthmatic, measure the 24 hours of the day by the steady and sustained moving of peas from one saucepan to another. For the true measurer of time is not the reminder app on your phone, your Garmin watch, or the hours you are clocked in but rather, you, the human who invented those very means by which to track time. And so, you can choose to measure time and productivity in whatever way you see fit, whether that is indeed through a clock, an app, a watch, or the assiduous moving of small, round, green peas.
