Time in a Year

Well, the year winds down, just as every year has before this one. Time sometimes is a curious concept to me. Well, not Time itself but our conception of time. Or maybe I should say our conception of anything beyond a day.

A day I can understand. Sun comes up, Sun goes down. That's pretty simple, fairly easy to track. No problem. And no, I'm not going to bring Time Zones into this because yes, Sun comes up and goes down at the same time in different parts of the world. So I'm talking about the basic concept of a day. One full revolution of the Earth on its own axis. And we are about to complete one full revolution (okay, orbit) of the Earth around the Sun. Oh, and don't forget, we tilt too, creating our summers and winters (again, I'm talking Northern Hemisphere, West Coast North America). So, one day and the seasons are fairly accurate tracking devices. Good there.

But what the hell is an hour? A month? A year!?! Human constructs of Time. Although I am curious as to how the 60 sec minute, 60 minute hour did come about. Who gets to decide these things and why wasn't I consulted. And why aren't there 60 hours in a day? Because the Sun comes up and the Sun goes down. Yeah, but so what? Why couldn't three Sunrises and three Sunsets be a week? Sun comes up, go to work. Get sleepy in the afternoon, take long break. Sun goes down into deep night, go to bed. Who needs 5:00pm anyway. And I just have to say, having visited countries that implement the highly civilized concept of a siesta, and once getting over the fact that things close down and aren't accessible ALL THE TIME, siesta is a massive boon on the daily self. And I mean it, civilized as all get out.

Now I'm not saying that countries that don't have siesta times aren't civilized or losers or that siesta countries are better than others. Because really, I don't know the statistics of various countries and their rates of mental health or lack thereof in connection with siestas but my personal opinion is the slower you take things, the better off you are. And siesta countries tend to be slower paced than say, oh, AMERICA. Granted, they do not have all the uber things we have, World Super Power opportunities and all. And more often then not much of the population is living in abject poverty in comparison. So maybe it's just a crazy gringo concept of mine, idealizing as my husband would say. But again, I'm not denying these countries too have issues, big ones, hard to be idealized issues.

But I want to point out that America is not "all that". It certainly has its issues as well, some that are very deeply ingrained, so deep that they might not be seen off the bat. And America... okay, on Speed or something. Constant rushing about, especially within the commercial realm. Well, and the work realm.

9 to 5. Work, work, work. Be a productive and good citizen. Meh.

I'd be curious to see what would happen if everyone was able to take a nap in the afternoon. Or have nice, long drawn out lunches with their fellow humans. Or go for a nice stroll. (Ahh, in Malta, people turn out by droves at dusk to stroll on the beaches, boardwalks, what-have-you, in a daily ritual... little gelato, strolling hand in hand with your friend/family/partner while the sun goes down??).

So, any theories about what might happen? Post a comment and let me know.