Heroes Not Zombies

What instruments do you have, and use, to help you make your way through this life?

Although our smartphones have compasses in them, how many times do you actually use one? I’ve used both Google Maps and Apple Maps to help me find my way through a city, and while they both let you mark, in advance, a place you want to visit, I’ve found that several times, when I come out of a metro or a station, that I set off in totally the wrong direction! Maybe I need to use the compass to figure out where north, south, east and west are…..but I haven’t done that so far.

Many of us have GPS in our cars now, and a couple of years ago we had a visit from some friends who live in Provence. Their car had GPS but they’d never used it because they are both a bit resistant to new technologies. However, I took the time to show one of them how to set her destination in her in-car GPS, then asked her to choose whether she wanted “the fastest route”, “the shortest route”, or the “optimised route” (which I explained balanced the other two options). She said, “I want to take the prettiest route”. Well, the Michelin maps in France mark many roads with green lines along each side. These “green roads” are the “prettiest” or “most attractive” ones, so I knew what she meant. I told her the GPS didn’t offer that option. She replied, “Well I don’t want to use it then”. I’ve been thinking that the “prettiest route” option is THE big missing function in most (all?) in-car GPS units ever since…..

Clocks or watches must be amongst our oldest, most used, instruments for helping us to get through life. There have been town clocks since the thirteenth century, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that personal watches became common.

I once organised a weekend workshop at the hospital where I worked and invited a Dutch colleague to come to Scotland to deliver it. He stayed with me for the weekend and we travelled to the venue by train. On the first day, the train got held up, then moved a bit, then got held up, and so on. I was getting increasingly anxious, checking my watch every few minutes. My friend said to me “Relax, in all the times I’ve been presenting workshops, they’ve never started before I arrive!” He then went on to explain to me that about 15 years earlier he had removed his watch because he thought that constantly checking it just made him anxious. He pointed out that I could look at my watch as often as I liked but the train wouldn’t go any faster. I took my watch off that weekend and haven’t worn one since.

However, it’s not that I never check the time. There are plenty of clocks and timekeeping devices around us all the time – especially as most of us have phones which show the time now. But I definitely cut back on my watch/clock/time checking after that.

The French philosopher, Henri Bergson, wrote clearly about the difference between measured time and lived time (duration). My normal working day centred around fully booked clinics, divided into regular time slots. I found that I didn’t need to check the time in the consulting room. I had developed an unconscious ability to “know” how much time had passed, and, normally, my clinics ran to time. I used the same skill when teaching. If I was given a 30 minute slot, I’d deliver my lecture, then check the time, and 30 minutes would be about to lapse. If I was given an hour, I’d deliver my lecture, check the time, and the hour would be about up. Not always. But usually. So, I understand this phenomenon of lived time, and I don’t need a device to measure it.

I have seen some utterly beautiful public time-keeping devices however.

Before the invention of clocks, we used sundials. Some of them are delightfully beautiful.

Here’s another clock, this one in the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. It’s a favourite of mine…not least because you can look through it, out across the city.

This next one shows the days of the week, representing each day according to the planet which gives the day its name (you knew that’s where the names of the days of the week came from, right?) I like this, because it suggests a slower pace of living – knowing the day, rather than knowing the hour, minute and second!

Another type of instrument we use is the barometer.

When I was a young boy, I had a “weather station”, which included a barometer, a thermometer, an anemometer to measure wind direction and speed, and a hygrometer to measure humidity. I learned how to recognise different kinds of clouds and I measured the daily rainfall. Not sure I ever learned how to predict the weather though!

Nowadays, it’s back to that smartphone with its weather apps! What strikes me about the one I use which shows predictions for the next ten days, is just how often the prediction changes before the day arrives. If rainy, stormy days seven days ahead turn into dry days with sunny spells before the seven days are up it feels like I’ve gained something. It feels like a win! How weird is that? I get to avoid the bad weather that was never going to happen anyway!

Which instruments did you use in your life in the past, and which ones do you use now (or do you only use apps on your smartphone or smartwatch now?)

And what do you pay most attention to? Direction, time, weather….or what? I’ve often thought that what we pay attention to influences what we experience.