I never have understood the point of daylight savings. First, I was raised in Arizona, and Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings. But more, I don’t believe in the measurement of time. I abide by it, to the extent that I interact with a society that does believe in the measurement of time, and I know what it means to be punctual.
As I have said in this blog before, there are three natural measurements of time: the day, the month, and the year. All other measurements: weeks, hours and minutes are man made arbitrary constructs. There is going to be the exact same amount of daylight on the same day of every year, depending on one’s latitude, regardless of what ‘hour’ it is. So what does it matter that yesterday it was six when the sun set and today it’s seven?
Beyond this, I’ve been thinking, while the amount of daylight we have wanes and waxes at the same yearly rate, we do have less daylight in the winter than we do in the summer. Yes,yes. That’s a no-brainer. The sun is the giver of all life to this planet. I think we, as a species, should live more in tune with our natural environment. Why can’t we just work shorter days in the winter, longer days in the summer? A type of pseudo-hibernation, while the daylight hours are short and the earth is in its dormant phase. Like other plant and animal species that behave seasonally. In the summer, with longer daylight hours, thus more natural growth, is when we should be working longer hours. Use this time to harness energy and save enough for the long cold winter hibernation.
Okay, that’s all. That and it’s snowing.
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You are right in your thinking, In fact China with almost the identical land mass has one time zone and is in fact the one of the largest and fastest growing economies in the East. So why tamper and play with time zones and why not follow your theory and theirs.
ReplyDeleteJFYI - If you are still curious as why we adapt different time zones and switch our clocks back an forth with DST, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia might be able to provide us some answers, although I believe it is a bunch of $@#%, :-)
Have a nice week, you two.
Best wishes
If months are a natural category, I wonder why February only had 28 days and others of 'ems months had more days, like 31 days. I wonder enough to ask the question, but not enough to read through boring stuff to figure out an answer.
ReplyDeleteTelemoonfa,
ReplyDeleteThe 'natural' month is the moon's journey around the earth, approx. 29.53 days. (even in this there are variations, if you count a month as the moon returning to the same position in relation to the stars, it is 27.5 days, if you count a month as the full cycle of the waning and waxing moon it is 29.5 days) the 'natural' year is the earth's journey around the sun approx. 365.25 days. There are not 12 natural months in a natural year, there are really (depending on how you figure the month) about 12 and 1/2 to 13 and 1/2 natural months.
This is way too complicated for human minds that like to think have things orderly in order to make it easier to comprehend. So humans in the western world (Julius Caesar in 46 BC and Pope Gregory in 1582 AD) came up with a calendar, where they made the little fact that month's don't fit precisely into a year, go away. But once every four years, it catches up with them.
So the human calendar that we work off of, and the natural cycle of the planets, moon and heavens are two different things. And I think the man-made names such as February and October are of not much use when it comes to dealing with nature.