KERR: Consider our addiction to time

By David S. Kerr
For the Stafford County Sun
Published: May 28, 2008

There is probably no other society in human history, save perhaps the Japanese and the Germans, that worries so much about time as we do. While those cultures are known for getting the most out of every minute and always being on time for every appointment, we Americans - whether it’s arriving at work, lunch, meetings or picking up the kids - probably have them beat. We’re always worried about the time.

Sitting here with my handy laptop, I am doing a quick survey of everything in my office that’s telling me the time. My laptop, of course, has its own clock and if need be, an alarm feature. My blackberry and my cell phone both show the time and yes, also with an alarm feature. There is even an emergency flashlight in my desk drawer that comes complete with a clock.  I guess that’s so if there is a natural disaster I will still be on time for my next appointment.

I even have a Timex, a watch I use for traveling, which not only has a wake alarm, as well as a timer, but it also lights up. That’s so, when I can’t sleep in some distant city, I will know just how much time I have left to toss and turn before my first appointment.

Even my kitchen is a virtual assortment of high-tech timepieces. My grandmother had an egg timer, the kind with sand in it, but she would have been overwhelmed by the number of time displays in the modern kitchen.  The microwave has a clock, complete with timer settings of all sorts; the convection oven has a clock in it, and oh yes, the refrigerator has a clock. Why a refrigerator needs a clock, I don’t know, but it has one. Elsewhere in the house there is the time display on the answering machine, and every telephone set, and there are five, tells the time as well. The DVD player has a clock, and if I kept looking I could probably find a few more. Feeling overwhelmed yet?

You might have noticed it in the way we talk about time. Not too long ago, it was traditional to round up or down.  If it was 11:37, we would just say it’s 11:40, or 11:35.  Now, it’s always down to the minute. (Is it also perhaps because most clocks today are digital, without the traditional face with its beloved hour and minute hands that mostly defy precise readings?) Regardless, my great uncle, a farmer and one of the few people I knew who didn’t carry a watch, took a different approach.  He would have probably just looked up at the sun and said, “…a little before noon I think.”

However, it doesn’t stop once you leave home.  WTOP, the up-to-minute traffic and weather station, tells me the time on the way to work about once every 30 seconds, and of course, so does the clock in the car. That way, I know, as my blood pressure rises, just how late the traffic jam of the day is making me for work.

Though perhaps my favorite clock, in a quirky sort of way, was a Romanian-made alarm clock I bought in Scotland in 1978. Like a lot of young men I had trouble with that whole notion of getting up in the morning.  This probably had something to do with having stayed up late the night before, but not having made this connection yet I figured this mechanical clock, massive as it was, would do the trick. It was a 1920s era design, and even though it was made in a Soviet bloc country, it had a look of reliability to it. However, it had one problem. Every time the alarm bells went off, there probably wasn’t anyone in the apartment complex who didn’t hear them. I don’t know many Romanians, but something tells me that, if this is the kind of alarm clock they prefer, they probably don’t oversleep much. 

To my surprise, even retirement doesn’t seem to break this addiction to time. Retired men in particular seem to love fancy gadget-filled wristwatches. For one of my recently retired relatives not only has knowing the time here at home remained important, but so, it seems, is being able to quote the time in far-away cities.

I worry though, and it’s a simple notion, that perhaps this constant worry with time, bordering on obsession, is getting in the way of our making the most of it. Maybe, in the process of always worrying about what time it is, we’re missing the point. Time, after all, is the ultimate non-renewable resource. However, that’s a notion I will have to consider later. That is, when I have the time.

David S. Kerr is an Aquia resident and a former member of the Stafford County School Board. Contact him at .