Here is a recent picture of splendid as she exists in my time, eah?
I also got a recent picture of Namaste sailing in Australia flying her
drifter and wanted to post it. I really love that little boat!
If you only read my blogs in hopes of finding a cruising or sailing tip, stop reading now. If you read my blogs in hopes to find inspiration to voyage then perhaps it is time for a change? So many of my readers write me and say they just cant pull it off now because of, …….?
Perhaps I’ve gone a little mad but I’ve learned how to control the time on Splendid, really!
I’ve been in the middle of reading two books, “Einstein’s dreams“ and “the mind of God”. Einstein’s dreams particularly got me thinking. The book is about the notion of time. “Mechanical” (man-made time, the clock) time, and “body” time. I’ve been writing a bit about it in my script and like to refer to “body” time as “innate” time as it is the time that comes from within. I.e., is it time for me to eat, hunt, work, love, sleep, and so on? I’ve drawn many of my own conclusions over the past week and plan to change my life accordingly, not to mention permanently.
I feel like I’ve been looking at a print of an ornate design with a friend hovering over my shoulder saying, “Can you see the picture, can you see it Alex”? After a bit of time your brain processes the complex nature of the drawing and it pops into view. This is how I feel about my relationship with time, I see it!
Five days ago I placed tape over the clock that hangs in the saloon of Splendid and removed/scrambled the clock from the bar on my computer screen and phone. I haven’t had a sense of mechanical time for the last five moons/suns and I must say I like it. I’m amazed at how often my eyes unknowingly stray to the tape on the clock, why does it matter? I know morning from mid-day, evening from night. Man-made time (the clock) is really irrelevant and I’m doing away with it for the most part. I have to admit there are times I want to peek under the tape but I don’t. 
When our stomach growls we should not look to our wrist to see if it is “time” to eat, nor when the clock strikes noon should we force food into our mouths if we are not hungry or just “could” eat. Also when we are tired we should not have to consult the ticking governor for permission to rest. This behavior resembles that of poor Pavlov’s dog, and this is not how I wish to live my life. Even I, living this life-style, am a slave to the tock.
In my opinion mechanical time and living by the clock, is the absence of harmony and the concept of freedom cannot exist in this environment.
I’ve taken better control of my time. I’ve found that I do things with more precision as I take more time not knowing the exact time, and fragments of stress have quickly dissolved living in innate time.
The only problem I thought I’d have living without the clock is my pressure pot. If I’m baking I can easily open the oven to look inside but it’s not so easy with the pressure pot. Funnily enough, I’m cooking better in the pressure pot, I don’t know why but I just seem to have a better sense of when my food is done?
Today is a strange day, its really gray and I don’t have a good sense of the sun. It was light when I woke up which is unusual. I usually wake between 4 and 5am as I like to watch the new day roll in with a cup of coffee on deck, and I go to bed between 9 and 10pm. Waking in the light this morning leads me to believe I stayed up much later than usual last night. I think I read, played guitar, and assembled some of the new film till about midnight, maybe 2am? However I woke feeling like I had a really great nights sleep. I didn’t wake up in the night as usual, nor have I been. Not having a clock forces me to listen to my body for rest and nourishment, and this “time” always changes, makes sense eah? I’ve been mediating a lot on
time. I’ve written about it a number of times over the years but I’m getting a little deeper into it now with a greater understanding of it.
I’m sure many of you have trained a dog to sit, stay, come. Could you teach a dog to come in five minutes, or even 10 seconds for that matter? Is it because he is so dumb he can’t understand? The bigger question is, if you could teach him mechanical time, would he come in five minutes? I’d use this analogy with a cat but the cat would just look at you with the “F-off” eyes they are so famous for. I think cats are masters of their own time & universe.
I’m about to make a broad statement but I believe it to be true.
I believe mechanical time to be evil. 
Evil as described by wikipedia:
Evil is the violation of, or intent to violate, some moral code. Evil is usually seen as the dualistic opposite of good.
During the dawn of mechanical time artists also depicted mechanical time as evil, now we just take it as a given. I believe the measurement of time is that dark shadow in the corner we can never really put our finger on. It’s the monster that lives in the closet of every child’s room, 
and the one we unknowingly/unwillingly learn to live with, the green-eyed monster if you will. It is the force that forces mother and father to spend most of their time away from their children when they are young in order to work (keep time). The evil eye in the sky, the clock tower that watches us from above, and the boogie man. Maybe you’re getting the idea, I really don’t like the clock or the television for that matter!
When the ancient Egyptians invented the water clock and the concept to measure/control small amounts of time I believe they opened Pandora’s box and released this monster that controls us today. The Myans further perfected the measurement of time with the sundial. Then the hour glass came later, then the mechanical and digital clocks. It’s all been down hill from the moment the concept of measuring, or harnessing time was born and we haven’t lost “mechanical” time since. Or perhaps it hasn’t let go of us?
I don’t think man, or any species for that matter was meant to have their life (time) micro-managed as we do, by a mechanical device. And worse off we think it’s perfectly normal and are relatively unaware of this force. Western man, (not the Kuna or indigenous man), is absolutely obsessed with time, myself included, I hope to change this.
“Einstein’s dreams” made a point that makes a lot of sense to me. What if we were to think of/measure time as a quality, and not a quantity? Did we have a productive day? Did we have a happy morning? Was the time we took to make love to our woman quality regardless of how many minutes (perhaps hours) it took?
My French friends were just over for coffee and we were talking about time. When they were in Africa they said the tribe they were visiting had a saying, “you have the clock (white man), we have the time”.
What I do between 7:14am, and 9:22 am is really irrelevant. It’s time to wake up, perhaps eat something, and drink coffee, It’s MY time, not the clocks! Perhaps I need to do some early work on Splendid. Does it really matter if I start at 6:13, or 8:47?
We live and die by the clock and the clock demands servitude without us realizing it. How many of us find in our older years that much of our lives were wasted on the pursuit of money? I consider money another measurement of time as we have to trade our innate time (life/freedom) in order to get it. Perhaps the wrist-watch is more of a hand cuff? Expensive watches seem a bit grossly nonsensical. How much of your life (innate time) did you trade for the expensive time-piece on your wrist that tells you what, where, and more importantly when to do it? I guess the concept is akin to having an attractive jailer as opposed to an average one?
Ask yourself a simple question. If there were two of you, exact copies, one living solely by innate time in another dimension or time, and then you (the one your conscious of) living now, in mechanical time, who would be more whole or happy in their lives? Would your alternate-self trade his life being governed by his heart (the time within) for a more “productive” life (nice car, house, “security” or health care)? Would he feel his time on this earth was worth it if he died at 70, 60, or 50 as opposed to trading his past for the servitude to the clock and living to 80?
Personally I’ve decided to take control of my time. I will control the clock as opposed to letting it control me. I know I’ll need mechanical time if I have an appointment or charter in the future. But mechanical time will no longer live on the wall of my home, on my wrist, or on the screen of my computer forever in my eyesight, and I will only look upon it with the eyes of a cat, and as it’s master.
I’m going to make it a bit of a process for me to find mechanical time. I’m thinking I’ll keep it in my GPS. It’s a bit of a chore to dig it from where it is hidden, wait for it to boot up, and navigate my way to the time screen. I’m sure I won’t be looking at it every day or even every week for that matter. Don’t look for accuracy in the time on my emails because I’ve scrambled the time on my computer. I just don’t want it staring me in the face trying micromanaging my life anymore.
I know some of you think it sounds a bit mad, but if you’re up to it try to go a weekend without knowing mechanical time and you’ll see what I mean. It has more of a hold on us than we realize. And if you don’t have the time to peruse such an experiment that may set you free perhaps you should wonder why?
I have no idea how long it took me to write this blog but it was the better part of the morning, It took as long as it needed to and I’ll go to work on Splendid now. I will work on Splendid not to sail in March, but to make my ship better today.
On another note I’ve started assembling the intro to my new film and I’m uber-excited. It will be something special and I will take my time producing it so I can get what I really want out of it.
I got my external timer for my camera and I’m hoping to take my first time-lapse shot of a sunset this evening : )
I’ve also heard from a few people that have bought the new original BlueSphere T-shirts and they all love them. They say they are good quality. I have not met one (t-shirt) personally yet, hopefully this week. We will launch a baseball hat shortly. I met a nice guy with a company that makes t’s & hats and we have started a nice little relationship.
Time is on my side.
Peace, love, and freedom from the clock!!
alex