Time hurts

 I need to be able to write precisely now because wehn else is there? There is no other time than now so let's write. I need to be able to write because there is no time, there is no other time. This is a need borne out of a deprivation of time, a deprivation that comes hand in rhinestone glove with an introduction of the ticking hand on the clock's face.

The clock wraps us into its gaze, we break up the flows of our desire in blocks we call time and this is of course linked with the packets of emptiness we call money.

In the regime of the clockface, we get a notion of time whereby events (but not necesssarily Events) are triangulated into measured moments of seconds, minutes, hours. HAppenings are no longer vaguely associated with seasons, lunar cycles or equinox, but are now precisely codified as occurences recorded onto a running-on schedule or script. Now that the happening has been 'located' in time, the event can be understood in context to the other addresses of temporality, enabling a uniquely sharp sense of where one thing repeats and another suspends.

However with this acuity comes further limitation: the clock face is a judgemental one. Even though each minute or each hour on the clock is essentailly just a marking seperated from other markings with a particular angle or placement on the clock, we nonetheless see in this face all the social connotations of certain hours or movements of the clock hands. A deadline looms and every tick of the clock is a nail in our coffin, or every minute passed is a minute irrevocably lost, wasted or could've been better utilised. 

When we are late to work, the clock patronisingly reminds us of this 'fact'. When we are waiting for something to happen, or needing something to be over, the clockface turns into a mocking one, with each second labouriously sustained for maximum irritation.

The clock is different from the calendar. The days of each week are clearly and unambiguously demarcated by the rising and setting of the sun, and the lunar calendar the movement and 'rotation' of the moon. However because these transitions happen at different times depending on where you are in the world, there is no global end or start of a day, however there is a kind of 'global' start or end of a minute, or an hour. Sure the timezones may differ and clocks may be out of synchronisaation etc., nevertheless the clock brings about a universal standard of 'micro-time', it takes 3 minutes to microwave soup, it takes 2 hours to visit your Aunt and come back home, it takes 24 hours for the sun to rise, set and then rise again.

Time hurts.