I had an interesting conversation with the Godson tonight. He was using dumbbells and I asked if he had tried juggling them. At that point his dad decided to demonstrate. Thankfully no broken toes.
However I decided to ask him why young people avoided church these days. His answer was quite enlightening – he told me none of his friends got out of bed till 11. So how would you expect young people to attend church at a time when they are in bed?
Another friend was commenting on the different work times people are developing, home working is partly destroying the old 9 to 5.
We never call people after 9pm or 10pm – why? I am awake most nights till 2am so whywould it be wrong to call me at midnight?
There are so many “standard” timings for things in life. I read an article a while back that talked about normal sleep cycles. It mentioned that in the recent past it was normal for people to wake in the middle of the night. When they did they would go out for a walk, a quick half or something, then come home for a second sleep.
Thankfully my life is free from a lot of constraints so I was able to try out the two sleep option – wake up during the night – do something – then go back to sleep. My work is also able to vary – so I normally start at 11 and work for 2 hours then take a break till 5 in the evening till it finishes. It makes my life much more relaxing.
I have been enjoying the occasional time outside after midnight. The streets have been empty.
One of the things about the relaxing of lockdown will be the need to vary our lives. The scientists have come up with a 4 on 10 off cycle, but as far as I can tell that assumes we will all live our lives to the same 9-5 schedule.
One of my friends has asked whether schools should hold summer classes for some students – good question – why do all years have to attend at the same time?
My guess is that a lot of our time constraints come from the industrial age, factory shift working. But do we really need that today?
Somebody said today that they liked to call in for a coffee on their way to the office. No fixed time, just a random visit and chat. Maybe we need to take a long hard look at whether the clock is controlling our lives. As I said before, on day 1 I took my watch off and have not put it on since.
I actually wonder whether the clock has become a kind of God to us at times.