Noon

Doyle Srader has come unstuck in time.

No, I'm not bouncing back and forth between World War Two and Tralfamadore. I only mean that Friday gave me fresh reason to appreciate how different time looks to me from the way it looks to my students, and even most of my colleagues. Thursday night, I went to the Spirit Showcase. It was an excuse, and any excuse is a good one, to drop in at Cozmic Pizza and have a Rings of Saturn, although the beer they talked me into, a Belgian Witbeer under the brand name "Mother Ship," was truly awful. But I enjoyed the music, in no small part because the players were all NCU students. After that, we had a debate team meeting, because we needed to get in at least one complete practice round before today's tournament. That started a few minutes past nine, and when it was done, they all wanted to debrief. And then I still had my walk home. I didn't get to bed much before midnight, so I slept in just a bit.

None of that put my attention on time. It was on my walk to work that I confronted the difference. The sun was all the way up, and there was noticeable traffic, from cars to bikes to other walkers. Nothing extraordinary, nothing I wouldn't expect at that hour, but not what I'm accustomed to, anymore. These days, I walk to work in near pitch darkness, with very few other people around, and that has become very precious to me. The stillness feels safe and soothing. I don't need it all day, but it's a part of my morning routine, and when I missed it on Thursday, I missed it.

The actual thought that brushed through my head that day was, "So this is what it's like." And that thought bridged me over to musing about television, which also imprints people's perception of time.

At present, I don't own a television. Furthermore, I haven't had a working television with cable in almost thirteen years. Very occasionally I see a few minutes of TV at someone else's home, or in a hotel room, but I nearly never sit down with the purpose of watching an entire program. Over Christmas, I had a brief flirtation with Netflix downloadable programming, but during the term I have nothing like the time it takes to watch anything substantial. For all those reasons, I spend almost zero percent of my day immersing my brain in a reality that includes quick cuts, TV editing, and metered time for advertisements. I simply don't come in contact with that experiential rhythm, and that's a major difference separating me from most other people I see daily.

So, my start and finish time are different. My start is quiet and free from people. I skip out entirely on night-life, which is when most folks do a good deal of socializing. And then, during the day, I live in a continuous reality, and there aren't clear on-off switches between messages of substance and sales pitches.

Simplest way to put it is that I live on farmer time. And I can live with that.