I’ve been wanting to live without time for a while now. I’d heard about a petition by a Noweigin town called Sommarøy, north of the Arctic Circle, which called for the abolishment of the 24 hour clock. The campaign asked: “Why do we need time and clocks when there is no night?”
A fair question. Unfortunately, the town of 350 people never fully freed themselves from the confines of a 24-hour day. The realities of international meetings, trade schedules, and news broadcasts made the experiment unrealistic.
However, sitting here in New Zealand during the Covid-19 quarantine, with no formal lectures to attend, no work schedule to meet, and no real obligations to my name, I figured this was the perfect chance to do what I’ve always wanted to do: give a big middle finger to the confines of a 9-5, to alarms, and to analog clocks. I made it my mission to abolish time. The first step was losing my watch.
Watches have been around for about 500 years, and mechanical clocks precede them by only 200 years. Before that, time was told by shadows and intuition. In that short amount of time, mechanical clocks - big and small - transitioned from being a mark of the elite to being in every classroom, kitchen, and car.
Now, it is seriously, really, really hard to not know what time it is. There’s a clock on my laptop, right now. One on my phone. One on my microwave. Getting rid of the watches and analog clocks was easy - these omnipresent digital displays were the next hurdle. I found the most successful method of removing these timers was to simply ignore them. When I couldn’t remove a clock face from the display, I tried to obscure it with tape, but that didn’t work; usually the display also showed things I needed (like timers or temperature).
A blind eye had to be turned to devices like ovens and microwaves. When I couldn’t ignore them, I’d set the time to something random and inaccurate. This scrubbed pretty much all the meaning from the time; currently the sun is high and hot, but my oven tells me it’s around 6pm. A minor success.
Some benefits of this lifestyle were immediate: I rose with the sun (and then proceeded to sleep for a few more hours) and I slept when I felt tired. I ate when I was hungry. I exercised when it was sunny. I worked when it rained. Sunset was beer-o’clock. Thanks to a mixture of privilege, pandemic, and providence, I have no obligations to my name other than my health and keeping up with family and friends.
Most of the people I kept in touch with had no idea I’d eliminated time. Instead of setting times to call, they would text me or I would text them asking if they’re free. It was hard to ignore the time on my phone when these texts go through, but - as is my life motto - with some willful ignorance, anything is possible.
Some drawbacks: scheduling anything formal can become a nuisance. I had to schedule an interview this week, and was quite bitter when I opened my (formerly empty) calendar to add this single, obnoxiously permanent task to my docet.
The most common vestige of time in my life these days has been the kitchen timer. This still operates in minutes and seconds, of course, but I’ve begun eliminating even this instrument. Instead of setting exact times for things to cook, I’ll just sample the dish as it heats or cools, finding the readiness based on actual quality rather than the time some abstract chef has set for me. My oven’s pretty shit, anyway, so the given times were already inaccurate.
A couple of weeks ago was daylight savings. I’ve always been frustrated by being robbed of an hour at night; I usually sleep late, so none of the day is “saved” for me. Daylight savings just means I get less sun over the course of my day, and this year, I’m determined to be immune. The sun will set with my dinner, just like it did yesterday, and the day before that, and nobody can tell me otherwise.
Overall, this little display of personal anarchy was a liberating experience. I know that a timeless lifestyle is incompatible with normal life, but with the global crisis on, normal life is the least of my concerns. With each day, I’ve been able to pry the 24-hour clock further and further from the front of my mind.
Already, the day, hour, and minute are starting to blur together. It’s been a week, I think? By the end of this quarantine I’ll have made some serious progress; it feels pretty damn good when someone asks “what time is it?” and I can say “honestly, I haven’t got a fucking clue.”
I predict that when the crisis passes, we’ll take some of our new habits into the future with us. Working from home, perhaps; better hygiene, perhaps. But I doubt a timeless day will be a possibility. The 24-hour day is just too integrated with global proceedings, with the academic calendar, and with our personal appointments. But I advise you all at home, now, to experiment with this lifestyle while you have the chance. After all - since we’re talking about time - there’s no time quite like the present.