Who needs time anyway in 2021?
Most people are not going very far away from home these days. Quite a few don’t venture beyond their garden or balcony. They are the lucky ones. The urban masses are in cabin fever territory. When detained by the pandemic, who needs time? Everyone, is the answer. Not an easily demonstrable one.
When nothing moves, why worry about timings? Trips have been replaced by fantasy voyages. Handshakes and hugs vanished, as contact was reduced to what eyes can see and ears can hear. Online encounters, once reserved to dating sites and virtual flings, have become a generalized practice.
Even grandparents and other family members born long before the internet joined the digital troops. They started mastering the useful skill of taking snapshots during live chats, a novel way of increasing proximity. Group photos, no longer possible in real life, went online.
Measuring time was saved by human biology and work, the latter being that human activity involving an exchange between time and money. Almost everything that used to happen in the ‘away from home’ space, invaded the home turf.
Moreover, it brought with it the 24/7 spirit. Thankfully, even the most resilient biological clock cannot cope without some downtime. The great natural boundary, sleep, could never be annihilated and it helped restore others.
Time and timings, briefly knocked unconscious by the pandemic wave, recovered. They even became a precious commodity. As the word ‘whenever’ is no longer in real use, a much shorter word has replaced it.
We have entered the era of ‘when’. Welcome back to measuring time in its purest form.
