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I'm a person who used to have lots of clocks, everywhere. Around the house, a watch, on my status bar, on my (un)smartphone, on my IRC client. Time was omnipresent. Not anymore. I've since removed all the clocks, everywhere. If I want to check the time, I do it manually via the $date utility, no more compulsive, unconscious, checking the time. This post will focus on how is it so far, I'll probably do multiple updates. There will be a technical follow-up post on how I removed the clocks.
"How can you live without a clock?! That's so privileged!"
Well, yes and no. This challenge mostly focuses around me checking the time too much whenever I'm free. I'll obviously still need a clock for activities, school, group meetings or whatever, the point is to try to structure my personal life as less as possible on clocks, more on the natural day/night cycle. In my free time, I don't need time.
When the human society began to mass produce watches, our whole society shifted from following the day/night cycle to following the clock. Along with the light bulb, these two inventions have mostly dislodged our lifestyles, from following a natural rhythm, to an artificial one. In turn, there's an ongoing "sleep epidemic," people don't sleep enough at all, our day is more and more fragmented into chunks, we get stressed about what's the time and so on.
Obviously, I find this challenge intriguing and different, if I find it rewarding I might try checking the time as less as possible for the foreseeable future.
I'm curious to see in what ways my life will change, no longer under the pressure of the mighty clock. I'm very used to constantly check the time, so it's quite a drastic change for me. There's a revolving anxiety about checking the time, so I find it pleasant. The hardest thing is probably to stop attempting to guess the time. I'll do follow-ups on how my experience is.