Ticked off
When my alarm went off this morning at “7:30” a.m. and I knew damn well by the position of the sun that it was actually 6:30 a.m. and I’d just lost an hour of much-needed sleep, I was filled with resentment. “What monster created this Daylight Saving Time?”
I was glad when a little research exonerated Benjamin Franklin, often blamed but apparently blameless, who appears to have written an essay in jest calculating the expense that could be saved on candles; we shouldn’t fault Doctor Franklin that others were so stupid as to take it seriously. The list of suspects behind this invidious time-shifting scourge of humanity is long and widespread, arcing from the 1700s to recent times, and stretching from the United States across Europe to New Zealand, heretofore known solely as the filming location for tedious Tolkien adaptations. Hiding somewhere in there is an actual culprit.
While it seems difficult to settle who originated this Very Bad idea of tinkering with our circadian rhythms twice annually, the better question is: Who will put a stop to it? Is there a petition to sign anywhere? A protest where I can show up? I would suggest that we en masse throw away our time-telling tools, except I don’t want to be without my iPhone and neither do you. So: What to do?
In the meantime, everyone I came into contact with today confessed to being bleary, confused, and dreary — and the people who are as a matter of course bleary, confused and dreary even more so. If Daylight Saving Time was intended as a productivity tool, and therefore yet another holdover plaguing us from the Industrial Age, then we need to report that it’s having the opposite effect, turning us into confused, shambling undead until finally we adjust.
I would have more to say, but I’m now going to bed — at the unconscionable time of 9:30 p.m.! —because I didn’t get enough sleep, and because my system is confused about what time it really is.
Good night.
March 14th, 2023 at 11:43 pm
In the immortal words of Click & Clack, “Every Spring, we all lose an hour. Then in the Fall, those who are still alive get that hour back. Meantime, thousands of people have died, their lives tragically shortened by needless government interference!”