How Did It Happen?
Who actually invented time, and why? There is no clock in nature. The sun rises and sets, the seasons follow each other, and life instinctively adapts to these rhythms. We used to live like that, too. We rose with the light, worked when necessary, and rested when nature prescribed. But somewhere along the way, we decided that this was not efficient enough.
Time is not a human invention; the sun rose and set long before we were there. But the way we measure and organize time, that is what was invented by people. But how did it get to this point?
For that, we have to go back a long way in time. Ancient civilizations such as the Babylonians, Egyptians, and Chinese observed celestial bodies to recognize patterns in nature. The Egyptians used sundials, for example, and the Babylonians based their time division on a sexagesimal system, something we still see today in the 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute.
But why did we bother to measure time? Simply put: to create order out of chaos, and to exercise control over people. Trade routes and shipping needed reliable timekeeping, and with industrialization and the subsequent industrial revolution and working hours, time became control. That's where it happened. We put pointers on a round disk and declared that time was now an absolute measure. And ever since, we have been prisoners of the clock.
It's An Illusion
Yet time remains a strange concept. We pretend that it is objective and measurable, but ultimately, it is mainly an agreement that we have made with each other. What we call "time" is mainly how we experience and structure change. In a sense, we are prisoners of our system. Perhaps we could free ourselves from that again. If we wanted to, that is, and that is not the case. Without time, a lot of control is lost, and people are creatures of habit. Getting used to a life without a clock, but with nature, we no longer control. Yet that is much more natural, also for us. Sowing and reaping happen according to the seasons, not according to the time according to a clock. Animals don't care about hours and minutes. And then you have humans, who have set up the entire society based on an artificial division of the day. We rush from appointment to appointment, keep looking at our watch or phone, and feel rushed when we ‘run out of time’. But how can you run out of something that is only a human construct?
The clock is a way of exercising control. It tells us when we have to work, when we can rest, and when we are ‘late’. But who decided that eight hours of work is the norm? Who decided that you have to sit behind a desk at eight and can go home at five? This rhythm goes completely against our nature. Some people work best at night, others in the early morning. But the clock forces us into a schedule that is designed for efficiency and economy, but completely ignores well-being.
Smokescreens
And that brings me to the smokescreens. Just as we have come to regard time as something objective, we are surrounded daily by other illusions that force us to accept certain realities. Politics is a master at this. The news dictates what we should value, politicians promise changes that never come, and discussions are framed so that we only consider the options presented. What if the real choices aren’t even on the table?
Look at the great crises of our time. Every time there is a problem, a smokescreen is thrown up. We are given half-truths, distractions, or a simple enemy to distract us from the real causes. Just as the clock makes us believe that time is a given, political structures make us believe that we live in a fair and transparent system, while behind the scenes, there are forces at work that we have little or no influence over.
To use the terms of my photo, it’s time to see through the smoke. To realize that much of what we take for granted, from our daily routines to the political games around us, is nothing more than a carefully constructed illusion. The clock is ticking, but only if we listen to it. The smoke is rising, but only if we don’t investigate for ourselves.
Maybe the first step is to get back into our natural rhythm. To be less of a slave to time and more attentive to what really matters. And maybe, if enough people do that, the smokescreens will eventually dissolve, and what has been hidden all this time will become visible.