The Clock

One day, I want to count how many times I look at my clock. I want to know how many seconds I witness floating by, the little green lines on the surface of the clock-face perpetually changing with every sixty seconds. How many times do I pass my gaze over the black box, and the silver buttons and accents around the face without really looking?

How much am I aware of time? And how much am I aware of it passing? These are two different concepts: I know what time it is because of where I am, where I need to go, the position of the sun in the sky, how dark it is, what the stars look like, and if I can see the stars, but I do not count the ticks of time passing between each breath. I do not slide the ribbon of minutes through my fingers to mark how they connect and flow together, one passing into the next.

I see the changing hours, I hear the days change, but I do not notice as they go by. They slither through my mind like mango juice through a sieve: passing through without creating the disturbance of notice.

There are so many sayings about time. “You’ve got all the time in the world,” “time flies when you’re having fun,” but I think a quotation by William Faulkner’s is the one I agree with the most: “Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.” In recording the seconds, and yet still not being fully aware of the time passing, takes away the magic. It would make life calmer, and possibly more enjoyable, to throw the clock out the window.

And yet, I can’t be anything but a slave to the clock. It tells me when to go to class. It orders when I’m supposed to eat lunch and when to eat dinner, and if I don’t do so, than I feel guilty to have eaten outside of the “correct times.” The clock commands when I go to a meeting, do homework, go to sleep, and when to start the whole process over again.

My clock tells me when to wake up, thundering Muse’s “Starlight” into the room. I can now recognize the first note of that song within a nanosecond. If it comes up on iTunes, only two or three seconds get out before I flip to a different song. If the radio station I listen to, 94.7, plays the song, then the volume goes off for four minutes and four seconds. I can’t listen to the song I used for an alarm last year either. “Scream” by Tokio Hotel is permanently off all of my playlists. I just can’t listen to either of songs. I don’t want to wake up any more than I’m already awake.

I don’t want to know how much I’m missing. It’s better to stay in this schedule and do what it tells me so I don’t have to make a decision. I can stay pre-programmed. I’m safe that way.