Stormy weather produces landslides, ships sunk by seasonal 'freak' waves, flooded cities - with extra traffic jams, roof leaks in Jakartass Towers, and the family flu. Aduh.
And time to reflect on time. I hope you've got a moment in your busy schedules to share this rumination. Are you reading this in some down time, a recreational break perhaps, or are you here because you've got nothing better to do? Whatever, please don't feel that you're wasting your time.We are obsessed with time: from birthdays and festivals to anniversaries - did you know that this year is the 60th Anniversary of Murphy's Law? (I prefer to call it Sod's Law.) My Jakarta version would possibly be: If you have to be somewhere at a certain time, you'll probably be late. Conversely, if you expect jam karet (rubber time) to apply, you'll be much too early.
Such is our obsession with past, present, future and perfect tenses, we end up perfectly tense.
Time Is (Not) On My Side
On holiday and at weekends, I don't wear a watch. Our Kid has not taken his watch off for five years, he proudly says. (I think the battery has been changed a couple of times, though.)
I'll Be With You In An Instant
Instant gratification, instant noodles, pre-digested, labour-saving ... for what? Quality time? Judging by the diminished social, eyeballing contact among Jakarta's nouveau riche as they send instant text messages of little immediate import, I would suggest that time saved could be better spent at a school for etiquette.
But as they could yet be staring at a period of unemployment, they might be better off being castaways learning how to survive without their gadgets and widgets.
I pool my content. Instead of jumping on my phone whenever it beeps, I turned off some of the some of the push features and now access my email, Twitter and Facebook updates whenever I feel like it.
Make no mistake, these devices are very useful when waiting in line (but not at the front of the queue I hope!) or trapped in traffic.
But you should be in charge of your life instead of having a machine control you.
- Vishnu K. Mahmud writing in Jakarta Post about 'Blackberries'.
Why Father Time But Mother Nature?
City Hall, having created a nightmare metropolis with recreational spaces covered over with malls which offer plastic recreational 'facilities' regulated by opening hours, has made further inroads into controlling our biorhythms by attempting to enforce different, and in the case of our children, earlier, school and office hours.
If Indonesia were truly a democracy, politicians could only govern with the electors' consent for specific programmes which have been voted for. Governing by fiat (ford, toyota and kia?) is probably illegal, albeit very macho.
Past Times
Maybe the bad old days were really the good times. Certainly there are millions newly un- or under-employed who'd appreciate a 40 hour week for 40 years.
How we live by time
- Dave Allen
A watch, a clock.
We're brought up to respect the clock, to admire the clock.
Punctuality.
We live our life to the clock.
You wake to the clock.
You go to work to the clock.
You clock in to the clock.
You clock out to the clock.
You come home to the clock.
You eat to the clock.
You drink to the clock.
You go to bed to the clock.
You go back to work to the clock.
You do that for forty years of your life.
You retire.
And what do they fucking give you?
A clock!
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Having lost track of time, it's time for me to sign off. If you can spare a few minutes, please add to my time table.................................................
'Style', but not content, owes much to Martin Amis' short story The Time Disease in his Einstein's Monsters.
