Imagine that you lived in a culture that did not have clocks.
Would you still experience the passage of time?
Absolutely you would.
You would notice the sun moving across the sky during the day.
You would notice the wax and wane of the moon.
You would notice the different cycles of the year.
You would see the passage of time in the faces of your loved ones.
You would feel the passage of time in your own body, feeling your body's cycles of hunger and thirst, sleep and wakefulness, desire and fulfillment.
You would feel yourself grow to maturity and then grow older.
You would see the passage of time in the lifespan of the plants and animals around you.
You would inherit from your own culture the distillation of their values and priorities around the passage of time--
As someone raised in a rural environment I can promise you that agricultural time has its own rhythms. And those rhythms, as much as industrial farming has tried to bring them to heel, do not align with clock time.
Hunter gatherer cultures also have their own sense of time, that I'm guessing is different from agricultural time.
Industrial clock time is not life's time. It is not living time. It is not the timing of living things.
I will say that again--
// Industrial, clock time is not the timing of living things. //
It is OUR CULTURE'S WAY of dealing with time. And because our culture is set up to exploit our environment for profit, those are the values reflected by clock time-- efficiency, endless growth, reliability, standardization, replicability.
This way of relating to time is not the only way!
This dominant, corporately-sanctioned way of BEING is not the only way to BE.
And if you are somebody whose VERY FLESH, whose BRAIN, does not fit the brief of how you're supposed to be, I encourage you to seek out environments and people that support and celebrate you as you are.
NOTE: if you're one of the Proudly Punctual, i.e., good at the cultural construct of clock time and uninterested in interrogating it, this assay isn't for you.
The good news- for you- is that the vast majority of the world already aligns with and rewards the way that you function! And is highly invested in punishing people who experience time differently. In ADHD circles, we call punishment the "ADHD tax" and it literally ruins peoples lives.
So you don't have to let us know how much you disapprove of lateness. We already know. Thanks!
Love,
Emma