The Saturday Morning Post: Do You Have The Time?

Over the years, I have read several books about time, I recently read one about clocks and timekeeping.  For most of us, measured time rules our lives.  We allow measured time to regulate what we do in each day. 

There is natural time, the earth rotates causing the sun to rise and set, night to darken and morning to lighten.  The earth's trip around the sun takes about 365 sunrises. Before man measured time into hours, months, and years, this was how the passage of time was marked.  The sun rose and set, darkness fell and dawn broke through.  The seasons passed with warmth, and cold, rain and dry. 

Then there is measured time.  A construct of the human mind. Breaking each cycle down into measured parts. Someone decided on 24 hours in a day, and 60 minutes in an hour, why not 10 hours in a day, and 100 minutes in an hour? The number of sunrises and sunsets in a trip around the sun, is set by nature. Why 360 degrees in the compass and not 365? 

We then allow measured time to regulate our behavior.  Setting sleep time, awakening time, work time, by an artificial standard, that for many has little to do with anything other than the clock.  We clock in, or have set work hours, that don't necessarily correlate the nature of the work that we are there to do. 

Farmers have a strong sense of the clock not being in sync with the cadence of life. Fields are worked during daylight hours, cows want milking based on cow biology, that is more tied to sunrise and sunset than to the hours on a clock they most likely don't bother to read. Modern dairy farms allow the cows to come in for milking when the cow wants to come in for milking, and only alerts the farmer if there is a significant change indicating that the cow might be feeling unwell. A farmers time of work and rest, changes with the seasons, not with the clock. 

Why don't we let life regulate our time, and not the clock.