It always seems to creep up on me. Sometimes, I don’t discover its existence for a full day. It makes me aware of the advance of time, of the vulnerability of the universe to human manipulation, and of the truth that the darkest days of life are finite in number.
This year I became aware of British Summer Time when someone warned me not to be late for a Sunday appointment as the clocks were to be moved forward. Last year, I had been ill in bed on the day of the time change, so the following Monday was comprised of one challenge after another as I struggled to figure out why I was out of sync with the rest of the world. Television programmes weren’t on when expected. There seemed to be more activity on the streets than usual when I started my early morning sojourn, and people I would see everyday looked at me with puzzlement as I dared to vary my routine without offering an explanation.
The moment of revelation brings about mixed emotions. There’s the embarrassment of being so out of touch with what everyone else on the continent seemed to take in stride. There’s the joy of realising that bright summer evenings are just around the corner. There’s also the hope that the winter chill will soon leave the air. But to be honest, there’s a frustration over the decision of ‘the powers that be’ to meddle with the universe and, in the process, place my equilibrium at risk.
Yes, yes. I’m aware that the time change saves energy by requiring less artificial light and has economic benefits for some industries able to capitalise on the increased evening sun. But, it also seems to me that whatever is gained in the spring and summer is taken back in the autumn and winter when we return to British Standard Time. And deep down, there seems to be this gnawing feeling in me that we’re tinkering with something so basic that it’s probably not a very good idea. Ok, the sky won’t fall, but it might just cloud up more often just to spite us.
But as I think about it, I’m probably overreacting. Thinking of the year as this inevitable and static pattern of light and dark fails to honour the ability that human beings have to impact the world around them in a mutually beneficial way. Global warming may be our eventual undoing, but the bright ideas our ancestors had to turn wooden branches into clarinets, to irrigate dry land with diverted streams for subsistence agriculture, and to create national parks to limit the damage of uncontrolled human sprawl seem to be worth the meddling.
One has to choose when to go it alone and when to follow the herd – staying on Standard time when everyone else is on Summer time makes no sense. One has to decide when the natural should be tinkered with and when it should be left alone – the benefits of Summer Time seem to outweigh the inconvenience of physically moving the clocks twice per year. One must be sufficiently in touch with the world to know when change is necessary and be forgiving enough of self when one lags behind. After all, getting in sync with the world again sometimes takes only a moment's revelation.
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