Face of the Clock
If Life is made up of hours and days on the clock, then here’s something to deliberate on..
NOT TOO LONG AGO our forebears knew life in ways quite unlike how we relate to it now.
For them to work was to bring home bread for the table, there was simplicity in the way the hours are allocated and the associated modes of behavior.
The Face of the Clock
Neither have we lost touch with the face of the clock, our hours are appropriated too by the stacks and portions. In fact we are better at it by virtue of the social system we live in. This is largely true for urban folks.
Who knows TIME better than we do? With the hours neatly packed and trimmed for unused fats, these days the exercise drills right down to the precious minutes and seconds. We are more adept than ever in watching out for the jot and title that make up the 24hour cycle in a day.
I am convinced this myself, being once an employee at a company that operated on a 5day week, work began daily without fail on the dot at 8am. The bulk of the 8~9hours spent were regimented activities all blurred into oblivion now, and most employees would be glad to be out of scrutiny by 545pm at the scan-out clock.
For me, the morning rush hour was actually a mere 45minutes on motorbike spanning a distance of 30km from urban North to the outskirt. Simple routine and numbers to live by, but they had to be exact or ‘the System will punish you’.
I knew the motorbike ahead of me on the same stretch at the particular moment during the 110km/hr ride along the North-South highway. But we would never have met each other long enough to exchange a familiar glance. I was always overtaking him on the side lane, and he probably knew me only by the L-license plate on the rear.
If I am this disciplined about the exactness of the hours and minutes, it isn’t my choice but the result of company rules and policies on punctuality and work hours. Work has altered my lifestyle behavior; I had to give up my nocturnal habits and turned myself into a (reluctant) morning person.
Why, the official dictates at work place has simply decided my bed time to be 10.30pm, the duration of travel and the hour to reach home before school closed and the kids would be crying in the dark.
Everything else I call private to my life has to be back tracked accordingly to suit the official tagline, such is the impact/influence we live in and have to live with. Ruled and reigned in, re-alignment is inevitable.
This was my weekly routine rehearsed to perfection. It was not just rat race up the corporate ladder; it was encroachment of Work into my Life.
I did not feel robbed, I just adapted like many do unwittingly. Why, my protest is feeble and would be in vain. Besides, who is not time-conscious and subservient to it? I would be crying out to nobody and appear foolish.
In contrast, my retired mother knows no difference between Monday and Sunday. While I can feel the glitch between the highlights of an eventful weekend and the monotony by Monday morning, she does not share the same excitement we get from anticipating a planned event. Her life has never been structured, organized nor planned as a housewife and a businesswoman. In fact, she never grew up having her life that much bounded with the time piece like we do. In comparison, she’s free.
For her time blends without demarcation of zones or differentiation of behaviors. She knows nothing about Monday Blue, Weekend Hangovers, Happy Hour by the weekend, etc. It surprises me whenever she asks me what day of the week it is.
For an office workers that would have been gross sin not knowing the work from his right hand to his left. Knowing and living by the hands of the clock is fundamental to life as we know it. So much about ‘Doing the Right thing at the Right time’.
The obsession and entanglement we’re in is a generality unique to our era.
The point of it
I am not decrying the hard facts of life; I am only highlighting something so overlooked for its simplicity & apparent ordinariness.
While we are collectively riding this massive wheel of change called Civilization, let’s not forget there was once a separation between Work and Live.
‘Living for Work and Working to Live’ are two paths heading different directions.
I would defend the sanctity of humanity, even if we have to languish in the sea of rules & regulations by the face of the Clock; we ought to stay clear against blurring the borders where Life and Work rule, respectively.
Birds don’t stop chirping just because the haze is on. It does justice to humanity once a while to highlight the obvious, to sing in the right tune.
Article Contributed by PK Tan
Picture from Internet
By reading PK’s article, realised that TIME is indeed precious. That’s is why we need to spend quality time with our family members & friends to build relationships as most of us do not have the luxury of not working…..for majority of us, we need to work for a living…we need to make ends meet and feed our dependents, service our car loan, housing loan etc. So, we must indeed learn to balance work and live and not neglect the important people/things in life…..After all “Life is more than just work”.
Teresa Sia
PK …I like your perspective on time, work and real living. It’s a balancing act. Work can be part of living when we see it as part of our joy and fulfillment as a human. Work can be the essence of life and life well lived through relationship; interdependence, fun and fellowship can be the essence of human being. It is not our doing that is important but our being that is important. At the end of day … how we use our time will reflect on how we view life and vocation, family and relationship.