Time Cycles
Before I start, this is my 170th blog post on GoodReads. I'm starting it on St. Patrick's Day but publishing Saturday.
Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at time and how it works or doesn’t as the case may be. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!
Bet you think this is going to be the same old spring ahead, fall back lecture. Well, maybe part of it will be. But, let’s look at time in general for a little bit. According to this article https://www.maa.org/external_archive/... “measurement of time began with the invention of sundials in ancient Egypt some time prior to 1500 B.C.” I’m sure the first man recognized that time passed…or by some weird process things got light for awhile and then got dark for awhile. But, for argument’s sake, we started measuring time about 1500BC. When early man travelled from one area to another, they had to have some sense of time or the sun. There was likely recognition of things changing. Even without clocks, travel was charted using the skies, the stars and such. This must have given the early humans an idea of change that comes with time. As humans progressed, they learned to measure time using a variety of implements that included candles, water, sand and worked their way up to the mechanical marvels and of course the complex calendar and clocks on our computers, cells, and tablets. Who knows how even that will evolve over time. This article https://www.thoughtco.com/clock-and-c... discusses some of these changes. Each change was seen as radical in their time.
Of course now we have clocks on computers, cell phones etc. and we take time, make time, steal time, waste time spring ahead, fall back and some of us have too much time on our hands. Time takes an awful beating. After the Egyptian and Roman sundials, things progressed into clocks that needed to be wound; depending on cogs and wheels. This evolved over time and some could be wound less and now we have various battery operated clocks and watches with no need to wind. In the 1700 and 1800’s clockwork surpassed itself with automatons which were literally machines made to operate as a human would. A boy at a writing desk, a woman at a musical instrument and a silver swan are just a few examples you can find on YouTube. I have a link to the swan just for an example for those not aware of this marvellous jump forward in technology of that time period https://youtu.be/ECuS6HDa-9Y . They were works of art. This article talks about the automaton periods. I’m dealing mostly with the clockworks and clocks due to the relationship with time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton. At the time, people were interested in time and with human movement. It was a way to understand the world around them. The work was the marvel of that age.
When Standard Time was established, it was to make things easier for the railways to schedule. Of course they got very interested in time and ended up making different time zones to accommodate different locations. So, this made it easier for railways to have schedules and transportation and shipping could be done on some kind of schedule. This also moved the importance of keeping and measuring standard time on to the work day and everyday life. This article talks about this process in more detail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standar... Now this is not to say that Daylight Savings time is their fault (railways), though they were involved in setting standard time. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayligh... had various reasoning presented, most ignored early on. One early one was to save candles set forth by Benjamin Franklin who suggested it in a satirical letter…which goes to show that one man’s satire is another’s time change. It is mostly held together by arguments that people like more daylight after work in summer. It now seems partially politically based. However there are some suggestions that it may save on power consumption. At the same time there is an increase in some things like traffic accidents with some time changes. All this is discussed in the article. So, we continue to see suggestions of getting rid of it, keeping it and there seems little agreement by the powers that be whether we should or shouldn’t change it. There seems a greater interested around the time of the Spring and Fall Time change which makes it a topic célèbre at least two times a year. Much like a clock with a face and hands that is broken still gets to be right twice a year the Spring Ahead and Fall Back times seem to elicit a lot of discussion. I think people still see clocks with faces and hands. Not everything is digital.
Of course the music world has had a huge interest in time. Some want to save time in a bottle (Jim Croce). Some want to Turn Back Time (Cher)…and I am guilty of loving to share the meme before the time change in the autumn. Some of them yearn for Yesterday (The Beatles). Of course, not to leave out Movies and Actors we have Back to the Future (Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd to name 2 of the actors), The Time Machine (Guy Pearce) and of course Days of Our Lives (Soap Opera). So, no matter what we do, we still have time. There’s always time to change. Then in the art world we have Salvatore Dali who was fascinated by time and has a famous work showing melting clocks. People have been fascinated by time, changing time and changing our future by changing the past since time immemorial. It is the topic of many artistic endeavours.
As Michael Altshuler is quoted as saying, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” So, for those of you who are flummoxed by time, the only real thing one takes away from it is that time will pass whether or not you like it. Most of life happens and time passes whether you want it to or not. You cannot go back to the past and change the past. Many movies try to change reality and attempt to show it working for their characters. You cannot go to the future and warn yourself of a mistake you made. Once a mistake is made, the time it happened will never return. You will not get a chance to turn back the clock and get a redo. It is just as well to find ways to enjoy your time that do not infringe on the enjoyment of time by others. If you use your time to perpetuate stereotypes or to do harm to others, then you are wasting precious time. No matter how you use your time, you are the one that is in the driver’s seat of your time. Harvey Mackay is credited with saying, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” If you want to take anything away from this, it is to use your time wisely. You only get so much of it every day. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I look at time and how it works or doesn’t as the case may be. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!
Bet you think this is going to be the same old spring ahead, fall back lecture. Well, maybe part of it will be. But, let’s look at time in general for a little bit. According to this article https://www.maa.org/external_archive/... “measurement of time began with the invention of sundials in ancient Egypt some time prior to 1500 B.C.” I’m sure the first man recognized that time passed…or by some weird process things got light for awhile and then got dark for awhile. But, for argument’s sake, we started measuring time about 1500BC. When early man travelled from one area to another, they had to have some sense of time or the sun. There was likely recognition of things changing. Even without clocks, travel was charted using the skies, the stars and such. This must have given the early humans an idea of change that comes with time. As humans progressed, they learned to measure time using a variety of implements that included candles, water, sand and worked their way up to the mechanical marvels and of course the complex calendar and clocks on our computers, cells, and tablets. Who knows how even that will evolve over time. This article https://www.thoughtco.com/clock-and-c... discusses some of these changes. Each change was seen as radical in their time.
Of course now we have clocks on computers, cell phones etc. and we take time, make time, steal time, waste time spring ahead, fall back and some of us have too much time on our hands. Time takes an awful beating. After the Egyptian and Roman sundials, things progressed into clocks that needed to be wound; depending on cogs and wheels. This evolved over time and some could be wound less and now we have various battery operated clocks and watches with no need to wind. In the 1700 and 1800’s clockwork surpassed itself with automatons which were literally machines made to operate as a human would. A boy at a writing desk, a woman at a musical instrument and a silver swan are just a few examples you can find on YouTube. I have a link to the swan just for an example for those not aware of this marvellous jump forward in technology of that time period https://youtu.be/ECuS6HDa-9Y . They were works of art. This article talks about the automaton periods. I’m dealing mostly with the clockworks and clocks due to the relationship with time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton. At the time, people were interested in time and with human movement. It was a way to understand the world around them. The work was the marvel of that age.
When Standard Time was established, it was to make things easier for the railways to schedule. Of course they got very interested in time and ended up making different time zones to accommodate different locations. So, this made it easier for railways to have schedules and transportation and shipping could be done on some kind of schedule. This also moved the importance of keeping and measuring standard time on to the work day and everyday life. This article talks about this process in more detail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standar... Now this is not to say that Daylight Savings time is their fault (railways), though they were involved in setting standard time. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayligh... had various reasoning presented, most ignored early on. One early one was to save candles set forth by Benjamin Franklin who suggested it in a satirical letter…which goes to show that one man’s satire is another’s time change. It is mostly held together by arguments that people like more daylight after work in summer. It now seems partially politically based. However there are some suggestions that it may save on power consumption. At the same time there is an increase in some things like traffic accidents with some time changes. All this is discussed in the article. So, we continue to see suggestions of getting rid of it, keeping it and there seems little agreement by the powers that be whether we should or shouldn’t change it. There seems a greater interested around the time of the Spring and Fall Time change which makes it a topic célèbre at least two times a year. Much like a clock with a face and hands that is broken still gets to be right twice a year the Spring Ahead and Fall Back times seem to elicit a lot of discussion. I think people still see clocks with faces and hands. Not everything is digital.
Of course the music world has had a huge interest in time. Some want to save time in a bottle (Jim Croce). Some want to Turn Back Time (Cher)…and I am guilty of loving to share the meme before the time change in the autumn. Some of them yearn for Yesterday (The Beatles). Of course, not to leave out Movies and Actors we have Back to the Future (Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd to name 2 of the actors), The Time Machine (Guy Pearce) and of course Days of Our Lives (Soap Opera). So, no matter what we do, we still have time. There’s always time to change. Then in the art world we have Salvatore Dali who was fascinated by time and has a famous work showing melting clocks. People have been fascinated by time, changing time and changing our future by changing the past since time immemorial. It is the topic of many artistic endeavours.
As Michael Altshuler is quoted as saying, “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” So, for those of you who are flummoxed by time, the only real thing one takes away from it is that time will pass whether or not you like it. Most of life happens and time passes whether you want it to or not. You cannot go back to the past and change the past. Many movies try to change reality and attempt to show it working for their characters. You cannot go to the future and warn yourself of a mistake you made. Once a mistake is made, the time it happened will never return. You will not get a chance to turn back the clock and get a redo. It is just as well to find ways to enjoy your time that do not infringe on the enjoyment of time by others. If you use your time to perpetuate stereotypes or to do harm to others, then you are wasting precious time. No matter how you use your time, you are the one that is in the driver’s seat of your time. Harvey Mackay is credited with saying, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it, you can never get it back.” If you want to take anything away from this, it is to use your time wisely. You only get so much of it every day. Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://anchor.fm/a--j-pei-treasures
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
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A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA
A & J PEI Treasures is located on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are a husband and wife team and our companion animals. There are a number of things that drew us to the Island…one of which was the n
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