I have been a “time nut” all my life, collecting synchronized railroad and broadcasting station clocks. They will stand together at 2AM Sunday and move back one hour to Standard Time.
As we pass another mind-bending time change and move our clocks forward, disturbing the natural rhythms of our bodies, I’m reminded that it’s also a metaphor for something bigger in life.
The time change is a product of business trying to make an extra buck by keeping daylight available for shopping and not, as we had been told, as something that helped farmers or saved on fuel. So, here time is a metaphor of the manipulation of truth and the untruthfulness we have bought into for decades.
Since I live in Greenwich (CT), I’m also reminded that it was that city in England that set the standard for navigation and common time (Greenwich Mean Time) that got us all on the same page, working together for common purpose of global navigation.
It was accurate time, specifically atomic time, that helped scientists build a more accurate time standard that today runs our satellite GPS and global computer systems. So, when the scientists got control of time we reaped many benefits.
But the Daylight-Saving Time change we are going through this week is a nonscientific enacted political change that benefits no one. It may even harm some people.
There’s something to be said for listening to scientists and not politicians. How does that inform our decisions on November 5?
Dr. Bill Baker
