Not on a clock
The clock in the kitchen sounded for noon. 12 times. An odd sound because my life is regulated by a cuckoo. And I hardly pay attention to the time except to count fact bird. What brought it to mind today was an odd moment of synchronicity. At the same time the podcast I have been listening to end it. Almost as if it had a cue. Which it did not. For several years now my life has been deregulated. I no longer wait for the start of the next program on television. Closely regulated by the studio time clock. For me I am indifferent. There is a new freedom of using the Internet to do things. Programs are running all the time. On demand. No need to be sitting and waiting for the next hour to start. And it brings a remarkable freedom. Yes I understand why clocks used to be important. Making the trains run on time for example. Or assuring that you were on the wharf for the next sailing of the ferry. For television, time allowed them to charge for the ads that they were going to show. But we have moved beyond that. When I watch YouTube I am aware of advertising. Almost too aware. I am watching on my schedule and the advertisements seemed to be superfluous. Yes I realize that there are ways to check if a viewer has seen a particular ad. In order to charge the advertiser for the work that the network has done. But in the grand scheme of things I am now also indifferent to the clock. If I want to stop watching I stop if I want to skip and add there are ways to do that. None of it tide to the clock in my kitchen. Sorry cuckoo but you have been made irrelevant. I now wait for sunrise and sunset because those are the times that best fit my lifestyle. And if the phone should ring I realized that the collar on the other end is also not tide to a timepiece. A remarkable way to live.
