I'm reading In Praise of Slow, the cover of which drives me absolutely batshit insane.  Well, OK, not really, but I do really cringe every time I look at the clashing orange and pink lettering. Argh!

Anyway, in the introduction, Honore points out that people did manage to get by for quite some time without  time.  Well, without a way to segment time into hours, minutes, etc.  Some times were always pretty obvious, like sunrise and noon.  However, in the absence of watches, people did stuff whenever it needed doing, or whenever they felt like it.  That sounds so refreshing.  Especially now that time is even more arbitrary ... the extension of daylight saving time for another month, for example. 

While I was in Texas last week, I actually enjoyed CDT.  It's an hour behind EDT, and its alignment with the sun just seemed more natural somehow.  *shrug* 

So far Honore has made two points about time that have really rung my bell:

• Not everyone thinks time is linear like we do in the West.  Westerners think that time is rushing constantly forward to what, Armageddon?  Not all Westerners believe in Armageddon, bless their little heathen hearts, but I think it's fair to say that a majority of Westerners do think that time marches on in one direction until the end of it all.  Whatever that may be like.
• Westerners weren't quite so wound up about time until they tied the idea of money to it.  People used to be paid for objects/services delivered, not for doing something for x amount of time.  Once money and time itself were bound together, managers started trying to squeeze every bit of money out of every second. 

I'm looking forward to Winter Break so that I can just ignore time.  Hide all the clocks.  Hide the status bar on all my computers so that they won't break the spell.  I don't think a weekend will work ... I need a longer span of time so that I can let myself sync up with the sun however feels right.  

Meanwhile, why in the hell isn't it time to go home yet?!? :P ;)