Time Crunch.
You have to be to work by 8:00 a.m., lunch at noon, off the clock at 5:00 p.m. and night school from 6:30 p.m. until 9:15 p.m. At 5:37 p.m. you ate a burger and a few fries. You find yourself in bed by 11:00 p.m. Your life is clocked by the hour, the minute, and the second. How many times have you thought to yourself, There are just not enough hours in the day? However, what if it is not that there are enough hours in the day but that your perception of time is skewed? Originally, it was not by a clock that we figured our comings and goings, but by the movement of the sun across the sky. People knew it was time to harvest because they understood the cycle of the moons; the knowledge determined their survival. As society progressed, the concept of time was formed and since, our lives have been controlled by the concept.
The essay, Time and the Machine, allows author Aldous Huxley to explore the topic of time. He explains his belief that time is our tyrant. The perception of modern time has taken control of every aspect of our lives. Amidst the supporting information, he tells of the concept of time as we understand it being created as a by-product of industrialization. As the world has not shifted to industrialism at the same pace, many cultures do not view the concept the same as we do. Although we all are controlled by the rotation of the Earth, how we perceive it and how important that passage of time varies across the globe. In that same breadth, humanity originally looked at time through the motions of the Earth and the objects around us. As industry and technology advanced, we focused on the immediate vicinities around us, never noticing the cosmic rhythms and only seeing time as a linear trail we follow. Huxley states, We have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness (Huxley 6).
Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England. His family was filled with scientists and intellectuals. While attending Eton, he became afflicted with an eye infection and spent the next couple years virtually blind. Due to the affliction, he was not able to continue with his scientific studies and decided to receive a degree in English literature. With a start in journalism, he was able to meet the elite of the British intellectual society where he became acquainted with Bertrand Russell and met the woman which would become his wife. His wife and he spent much of their time in Italy, where they became good friends with D.H. Lawrence. In 1937, the couple moved to Hollywood, California, where he helped with several scripts but did not continue a role in the film industry. After World War II, he began using psychedelic drugs and became a huge supporter of their abilities. He wrote of their capacity to open the many aspects of the world around us. As a controversial individual for much of his life, he died of cancer on November 22, 1963 (GradeSaver 1-5).
While alive, Aldous Huxley provided us the dystopian novel, Brave New World (1932). His style combined brilliant dialogue, cynicism, and social criticism. Much of his work attempted to show the flaws of society. He pointed to the faults of a highly technological society in Brave New World, while his Devils of Loudon (1952) essay spoke of mass-hysteria and exorcism (Aldous Huxley Biography 2-4). His novels and nonfiction works were acclaimed during his life are continually studied. He was portrayed as a writer whose delicacy and sophistication highlighted the post-war society. His short stories fell short at times, being spoken of as entertaining and mildly interesting. In the collection, The Olive Tree, the essay Time and the Machine, written just four years after Brave New World, discusses his feelings on the passage of time, where the concept came from and the impact on society.
Many of us have slept through the alarm in the morning, or woken up before the alarm. We have all said it feels much later/earlier at some point in our lives. It appears at times that we all have our own internal clocks, informing us when we should do things. Prehistoric man used this and simple observation to tell time. Through the observation of the sun moving through the sky, the ancient societies would know the time of day. Watching and tracking the movement of the moon told them the amount of time that passed. Using a combination of both, they could plant and harvest, hunt, and prepare for the weather. However, according to Huxley, time, as we know it, is a very recent invention ( 1) meaning that he believes that this natural rhythm in which the world flows is not at all the same as the time we all live by now.
When the receptionist at the doctors office tells you the appointment is at 8:15 a.m. on Friday morning, you write it down understanding what that means. The ancient Neanderthals would never have understood this because it did not exist. Of course, there have been clocks and watches for hundreds of years, but only in the short lifespan of the United States did a time like 8:15 a.m. become so important. The moment means that you must be somewhere, your doctors office, at that time. We place the stress of being there on ourselves before that time in order to keep our day running smoothly and so we do not get the glare from the receptionist if we are even a few minutes late. At work, we may be docked pay if we are late or even fired if we are late regularly. These points show how much weight we put in a moment.
In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were part inventors of time ( 2) Huxley wrote in Time and the Machine. He is referring to the idea that without someplace to be at a specific time, we would not put the importance into a second, minute, or hour of our day. There would be no meaning in 5:00 p.m. if you knew that you could leave work when your work was completed. The earliest time measurement devices were the sundial, hourglass and water clock. Each of these gave estimates to what the hour was but were crude in their usage. The earliest clock was invented in the 990s but was still rudimentary and not entirely accurate. While the clock evolved, it was still not entirely accurate and much of society preferred to use the sky as their timepiece since clocks were something only the wealthy had. However, when the locomotive began running across the United States, the country began focusing on what time they would have to be at the train station in order to make their train (Time 2, 7, 8).
Our awareness of time has reached such a pitch of intensity that we suffer acutely whenever our travels take us into some corner of the world where people are not interested in minutes and seconds ( 4) Huxley states in his essay. This is found to be irksome to those travelers from the west who live their lives paced by the sands of time. For many of us, when a friend is fifteen minutes late to pick us up for a movie, we are angered at the lack of respect they have for our time. Meanwhile, to show up at the very moment is found to be unnecessary in other parts of the world. For many cultures, the idea of punching a time card at a specific moment is not important and more stressful then preferred. At the time this essay was written, Asian countries were not plagued by the sands of time as we were, but after World War II and their own industrialization and advancements in technology, they have become slaves to time as well.
In Switzerland, if you are 10 minutes late, it is looked at very poorly. However, in Brazil, no one will say a word if you are an hour late. According to Ezzell,
Social scientists have recorded wide differences in the pace of life in various countries and in how societies view time- whether as an arrow piercing the future or as a revolving wheel in which past, present and future cycle endlessly. Some cultures conflate time and space: the Australian Aborigines concept of the Dreamtime encompasses not only a creation myth but a method of finding their way around the countryside. Interestingly, however, some views of time- such as the idea that it is acceptable for a more powerful person to keep someone of lower status waiting-cut across cultural differences and seem to be found universally. (43)
This does not mean that time goes by any differently; it just means that the perceptions of its passing and how it is dealt with is perceived differently. As Americans, we tend to beat our drum by the pace of a second and those who do not fall in line insult us as a result. We live our lives by the 8:15 a.m. or the last time read on the face of our alarm clock at 11:23 p.m. The fifteen minute late friend had to deal with angry words when they finally showed up. Each moment is important and weighted. Huxley states, for a modern American or Englishman, waiting is psychological torture. An Indian accepts the blank hours with resignation, even with satisfaction ( 4). The idea of not being on time results in differences of opinions and Huxley believes that American, and English, societies should begin to look at how they perceive time and the consequences of not working within it.
I work from midnight to 8:00 a.m. in a room filled with light from fluorescent bulbs, computer screens, and television monitors. The constant sounds of the air conditioning and computer fans have replaced those of crickets, birds, or even the still of a warm summer night. Outside the walls, night turns to day. The only way I know the sun has raised is the brightness of the images from the exterior cameras. I go home to sleep and awake when it is dark again. The days blur into a mass of checking my clock to see what moment it is. Any deviation in the schedule I must keep means there is less time somewhere else for that which may be considered unimportant. Broadway and Piccadilly are our Milky Way; our constellations are outlined in neon tubes. Even changes of season affect the townsman very little. He is the inhabitant of an artificial universe that is, to a great extent, walled off from the world of nature (Huxley 6).
Huxley believes that the technology around us has filled taken away the natural rhythm with nature we once felt. We now keep our eyes level, never noticing the suns movements or the moons phases, seeing only the images provided for us by other humans. The moment was not as important as doing what needed to be done in the time the Sun allotted. With the focus on the moment rather than the tracking of the world around us, we have lost our natural rhythm. Thus, our moments have become heavy with superficial importance.
Somewhere, in the passing of time and progress, the human race lost themselves in the moment. Instead of cherishing the time that passes and enjoying it, we have pressured ourselves to live by mandates and appointments. However, the truth is that even though we have become perpetual slaves to time, we cannot ignore it either. Ideally, it would be advantageous to our internal clocks to get to work whenever it was we woke this morning but that is not realistic. It would be nice to say that we did not have to worry about our jobs or schedules but that is not the case. Realistically, we must take Huxleys words, we have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness, ( 6) and remember to look up at the sky and use our natural patterns as much as possible. We must not stress over appointments. At the same time, we must remember that the world does not follow our internal clocks but each individual has their own. The sky looks different to two people on opposite sides of the globe and thus, we cannot follow the same patterns.
Aldous Huxley believed time is a strong armed leader, telling us when to do what was needed, wanted or expected. In Time and the Machine he tells us that time is a by-product of industrialization and our progress as a race. He states that not all cultures look at or perceive time as Americans and English societies do. There is some sadness and regret when he speaks of our loss in connection with the world around us and the natural rhythms it provides. His tone tells the reader that we should remember that the moment is not what is important and that the perception of modern time has taken control of every aspect of our lives. He begs us to understand that time is not the only thing that is important but rather just one aspect of our lives. He reminds humanity that the Machine has pushed time into what it is now and that it is up to us to fight back. As the time crunch threatens us all, he asks us to remember that the moment is not as important as we have been pushed to believe.
WORK CITED
"Aldous Huxley Biography." Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Web. 18 Jun 2010.
Ezzell, Carol. "Clocking Cultures." Scientific American Special Edition Sep 2002: 42-45. Print.
GradeSaver. *Biography of Aldous Huxley | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays*. GradeSaver, 18 June 2010 Web. 18 June 2010. .
"History of Measuring Time." Time . Monroe County Women's Disability Network, Web. 22 Jun 2010.
Huxley, Aldous. Time and the Machine, from The Olive Tree, Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Ed. Missy James and Alan P. Merickel. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. 370-372. Print.
You have to be to work by 8:00 a.m., lunch at noon, off the clock at 5:00 p.m. and night school from 6:30 p.m. until 9:15 p.m. At 5:37 p.m. you ate a burger and a few fries. You find yourself in bed by 11:00 p.m. Your life is clocked by the hour, the minute, and the second. How many times have you thought to yourself, There are just not enough hours in the day? However, what if it is not that there are enough hours in the day but that your perception of time is skewed? Originally, it was not by a clock that we figured our comings and goings, but by the movement of the sun across the sky. People knew it was time to harvest because they understood the cycle of the moons; the knowledge determined their survival. As society progressed, the concept of time was formed and since, our lives have been controlled by the concept.
The essay, Time and the Machine, allows author Aldous Huxley to explore the topic of time. He explains his belief that time is our tyrant. The perception of modern time has taken control of every aspect of our lives. Amidst the supporting information, he tells of the concept of time as we understand it being created as a by-product of industrialization. As the world has not shifted to industrialism at the same pace, many cultures do not view the concept the same as we do. Although we all are controlled by the rotation of the Earth, how we perceive it and how important that passage of time varies across the globe. In that same breadth, humanity originally looked at time through the motions of the Earth and the objects around us. As industry and technology advanced, we focused on the immediate vicinities around us, never noticing the cosmic rhythms and only seeing time as a linear trail we follow. Huxley states, We have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness (Huxley 6).
Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England. His family was filled with scientists and intellectuals. While attending Eton, he became afflicted with an eye infection and spent the next couple years virtually blind. Due to the affliction, he was not able to continue with his scientific studies and decided to receive a degree in English literature. With a start in journalism, he was able to meet the elite of the British intellectual society where he became acquainted with Bertrand Russell and met the woman which would become his wife. His wife and he spent much of their time in Italy, where they became good friends with D.H. Lawrence. In 1937, the couple moved to Hollywood, California, where he helped with several scripts but did not continue a role in the film industry. After World War II, he began using psychedelic drugs and became a huge supporter of their abilities. He wrote of their capacity to open the many aspects of the world around us. As a controversial individual for much of his life, he died of cancer on November 22, 1963 (GradeSaver 1-5).
While alive, Aldous Huxley provided us the dystopian novel, Brave New World (1932). His style combined brilliant dialogue, cynicism, and social criticism. Much of his work attempted to show the flaws of society. He pointed to the faults of a highly technological society in Brave New World, while his Devils of Loudon (1952) essay spoke of mass-hysteria and exorcism (Aldous Huxley Biography 2-4). His novels and nonfiction works were acclaimed during his life are continually studied. He was portrayed as a writer whose delicacy and sophistication highlighted the post-war society. His short stories fell short at times, being spoken of as entertaining and mildly interesting. In the collection, The Olive Tree, the essay Time and the Machine, written just four years after Brave New World, discusses his feelings on the passage of time, where the concept came from and the impact on society.
Many of us have slept through the alarm in the morning, or woken up before the alarm. We have all said it feels much later/earlier at some point in our lives. It appears at times that we all have our own internal clocks, informing us when we should do things. Prehistoric man used this and simple observation to tell time. Through the observation of the sun moving through the sky, the ancient societies would know the time of day. Watching and tracking the movement of the moon told them the amount of time that passed. Using a combination of both, they could plant and harvest, hunt, and prepare for the weather. However, according to Huxley, time, as we know it, is a very recent invention ( 1) meaning that he believes that this natural rhythm in which the world flows is not at all the same as the time we all live by now.
When the receptionist at the doctors office tells you the appointment is at 8:15 a.m. on Friday morning, you write it down understanding what that means. The ancient Neanderthals would never have understood this because it did not exist. Of course, there have been clocks and watches for hundreds of years, but only in the short lifespan of the United States did a time like 8:15 a.m. become so important. The moment means that you must be somewhere, your doctors office, at that time. We place the stress of being there on ourselves before that time in order to keep our day running smoothly and so we do not get the glare from the receptionist if we are even a few minutes late. At work, we may be docked pay if we are late or even fired if we are late regularly. These points show how much weight we put in a moment.
In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were part inventors of time ( 2) Huxley wrote in Time and the Machine. He is referring to the idea that without someplace to be at a specific time, we would not put the importance into a second, minute, or hour of our day. There would be no meaning in 5:00 p.m. if you knew that you could leave work when your work was completed. The earliest time measurement devices were the sundial, hourglass and water clock. Each of these gave estimates to what the hour was but were crude in their usage. The earliest clock was invented in the 990s but was still rudimentary and not entirely accurate. While the clock evolved, it was still not entirely accurate and much of society preferred to use the sky as their timepiece since clocks were something only the wealthy had. However, when the locomotive began running across the United States, the country began focusing on what time they would have to be at the train station in order to make their train (Time 2, 7, 8).
Our awareness of time has reached such a pitch of intensity that we suffer acutely whenever our travels take us into some corner of the world where people are not interested in minutes and seconds ( 4) Huxley states in his essay. This is found to be irksome to those travelers from the west who live their lives paced by the sands of time. For many of us, when a friend is fifteen minutes late to pick us up for a movie, we are angered at the lack of respect they have for our time. Meanwhile, to show up at the very moment is found to be unnecessary in other parts of the world. For many cultures, the idea of punching a time card at a specific moment is not important and more stressful then preferred. At the time this essay was written, Asian countries were not plagued by the sands of time as we were, but after World War II and their own industrialization and advancements in technology, they have become slaves to time as well.
In Switzerland, if you are 10 minutes late, it is looked at very poorly. However, in Brazil, no one will say a word if you are an hour late. According to Ezzell,
Social scientists have recorded wide differences in the pace of life in various countries and in how societies view time- whether as an arrow piercing the future or as a revolving wheel in which past, present and future cycle endlessly. Some cultures conflate time and space: the Australian Aborigines concept of the Dreamtime encompasses not only a creation myth but a method of finding their way around the countryside. Interestingly, however, some views of time- such as the idea that it is acceptable for a more powerful person to keep someone of lower status waiting-cut across cultural differences and seem to be found universally. (43)
This does not mean that time goes by any differently; it just means that the perceptions of its passing and how it is dealt with is perceived differently. As Americans, we tend to beat our drum by the pace of a second and those who do not fall in line insult us as a result. We live our lives by the 8:15 a.m. or the last time read on the face of our alarm clock at 11:23 p.m. The fifteen minute late friend had to deal with angry words when they finally showed up. Each moment is important and weighted. Huxley states, for a modern American or Englishman, waiting is psychological torture. An Indian accepts the blank hours with resignation, even with satisfaction ( 4). The idea of not being on time results in differences of opinions and Huxley believes that American, and English, societies should begin to look at how they perceive time and the consequences of not working within it.
I work from midnight to 8:00 a.m. in a room filled with light from fluorescent bulbs, computer screens, and television monitors. The constant sounds of the air conditioning and computer fans have replaced those of crickets, birds, or even the still of a warm summer night. Outside the walls, night turns to day. The only way I know the sun has raised is the brightness of the images from the exterior cameras. I go home to sleep and awake when it is dark again. The days blur into a mass of checking my clock to see what moment it is. Any deviation in the schedule I must keep means there is less time somewhere else for that which may be considered unimportant. Broadway and Piccadilly are our Milky Way; our constellations are outlined in neon tubes. Even changes of season affect the townsman very little. He is the inhabitant of an artificial universe that is, to a great extent, walled off from the world of nature (Huxley 6).
Huxley believes that the technology around us has filled taken away the natural rhythm with nature we once felt. We now keep our eyes level, never noticing the suns movements or the moons phases, seeing only the images provided for us by other humans. The moment was not as important as doing what needed to be done in the time the Sun allotted. With the focus on the moment rather than the tracking of the world around us, we have lost our natural rhythm. Thus, our moments have become heavy with superficial importance.
Somewhere, in the passing of time and progress, the human race lost themselves in the moment. Instead of cherishing the time that passes and enjoying it, we have pressured ourselves to live by mandates and appointments. However, the truth is that even though we have become perpetual slaves to time, we cannot ignore it either. Ideally, it would be advantageous to our internal clocks to get to work whenever it was we woke this morning but that is not realistic. It would be nice to say that we did not have to worry about our jobs or schedules but that is not the case. Realistically, we must take Huxleys words, we have a new consciousness; but it has been purchased at the expense of the old consciousness, ( 6) and remember to look up at the sky and use our natural patterns as much as possible. We must not stress over appointments. At the same time, we must remember that the world does not follow our internal clocks but each individual has their own. The sky looks different to two people on opposite sides of the globe and thus, we cannot follow the same patterns.
Aldous Huxley believed time is a strong armed leader, telling us when to do what was needed, wanted or expected. In Time and the Machine he tells us that time is a by-product of industrialization and our progress as a race. He states that not all cultures look at or perceive time as Americans and English societies do. There is some sadness and regret when he speaks of our loss in connection with the world around us and the natural rhythms it provides. His tone tells the reader that we should remember that the moment is not what is important and that the perception of modern time has taken control of every aspect of our lives. He begs us to understand that time is not the only thing that is important but rather just one aspect of our lives. He reminds humanity that the Machine has pushed time into what it is now and that it is up to us to fight back. As the time crunch threatens us all, he asks us to remember that the moment is not as important as we have been pushed to believe.
WORK CITED
"Aldous Huxley Biography." Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc. Web. 18 Jun 2010.
Ezzell, Carol. "Clocking Cultures." Scientific American Special Edition Sep 2002: 42-45. Print.
GradeSaver. *Biography of Aldous Huxley | List of Works, Study Guides & Essays*. GradeSaver, 18 June 2010 Web. 18 June 2010. .
"History of Measuring Time." Time . Monroe County Women's Disability Network, Web. 22 Jun 2010.
Huxley, Aldous. Time and the Machine, from The Olive Tree, Reading Literature and Writing Argument. Ed. Missy James and Alan P. Merickel. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. 370-372. Print.