Wednesday, March 7, 2007

A Matter of Time

Daylight Savings Time (DST) is almost upon us and I'm excited. I greatly dislike Standard Time (ST). In fact, it bums me out each Fall when the time standard changes, but I get really jazzed when I know my preference is coming back. It will return in less than 75 hours.

A friend of mine is perplexed as to how a Taoist could prefer DST over ST. ST is the norm and DST is the exception. According to his way of thought, Standard Time reflects the way things really are, while Savings Time is a mere human contrivance.

For me, however, there is no contradiction at all because time is merely a human concept. It doesn't exist independent of the human mind. Consequently, both Standard and Savings Time are contrivances. I just happen to prefer the latter fiction more than the former.

2 comments:

  1. Time, a measurement of distance from one point to another...

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  2. Travis,
    I would posit that you are defining one human contrivance by several others (i.e., measurement, distance and point). Each of these concepts only makes sense if you view everything in the universe as distinct and isolated. If, on the hand, you view the universe as one interconnected whole, none of these concepts means anything.

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