Captain's Phlog                          2020.06.09
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NOW: I'm watching SIGNAL (2016), a South Korean 
police drama with a connection to the spirit 
world. So far it's quite good and I recommend it. 
There is also a Japanese remake which seems pretty 
faithful with only cultural differences.

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     Time, time, time See what's become of me
     while I look around for my possibilities
                                  -Paul Simon

My academic training was in Cultural Anthropology. 
I recall once my wife and I were making dinner 
plans with some Amish acquaintances (there is a 
cultural wall that renders all meaningful use of 
the word 'friend' inaccurate).  My wife was saying 
we'd see them at 5:30 when she paused and 
corrected herself saying it would actually be more 
like 5:35 or 5:40. Our host paused for a 
perceptible three to six seconds while they 
realized this brief distinction - between 5:30 and 
5:40 - possessed meaning to us "English" and then 
replied Okay.

Believe it or not, Amish society relies heavily on 
our modern first world. It is certain that they're 
current mode of life would not survive apart from 
the English world - though they would have an 
easier time adjusting to a pre-industrial paradigm 
than we would. In many ways their society is in an 
agrarian mode quite similar to pre-20th century 
pastoral life.

Their rhythms, like those of an 18th century 
colonizer-farmer or an Enlightenment French 
peasant, do not require the hour - let alone the 
minute or second. I feel their almost universal 
ownership of mantle clocks and the ubiquity of 
watches (wind-ups kept in a pocket with the band 
removed) are a convenience for interfacing with 
the English world.

The world you and I share is a world of time. Time 
to wake. Time to make the train. Time to punch in. 
Time for a break. Time to punch out. Time for 
packaged entertainment. Time for sleep. We are 
regimented by corporate masters in lock-step 
precision lest we - the faulty cog - are replaced.

Since mid-March I have had the privilege of 
adopting a new rhythm, one more recognizable to 
the peasant than the modern man, and I cherish it.
I wake when I feel refreshed (still at around 5AM 
- I'm not a Bohemian after all). I do quiet things 
for an hour or so until my wife rises. Then we sit 
and talk over coffee and toast until one of us 
decides to begin the day's chores. House, garden, 
shop... all options are open and we lean toward 
one or the other based on need and the weather.
Are we hungry? Then it's mealtime. It's sunny. 
Shall we eat outside? The sun is high and it must 
be getting on noon. Ah, there's the fire whistle.

We live in an area where custom dictates that most 
volunteer fire houses still sound their whistle at 
a certain hour of the day, mostly at noon. We can 
hear several on a good day from our smallholding. 
The church bell has been supplanted with a 
rotating air horn of obscene decibels. The 
lock-step of the capitalists invading our 
airspace. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's 
quaint and coming from Queens I still find this 
bucolic after three decades.

Never the less, it's there. Inescapable. As a 
newly minted peasant I do not need this regimented 
time... But I can't escape it. My phone has a 
clock. My stove has a clock. My laptop is nothing 
more than a very sophisticated clock with 
swappable gears that can interact with the world 
outside the case.

This new rhythm has allowed me to 'see' time...
and it's extraneous.