Time to Reflect

Last night, for a brief moment, I travelled right through time. This particular kind of time travel was very specific, and quite real. Every few years, it seems, a movie or TV show will come along and slightly redefine time travel. They'll add a rule, or treat time travel consequences a bit differently than before. This was nothing like all that, though. Last night I looked at my wife's digital alarm clock display, staring not at the numbers represented, but the glowing LED bars themselves, and I was instantly transported back to a younger version of myself, staring at a similar display many years ago.

These days, I can hardly think of a decent stretch of hours that I am not keenly aware of what time it is. Occasionally I can get lost in my work for a couple of hours, but mostly I know how much time I have before this meeting, or that appointment. I know how much time there is before the store closes, or until I need to start on dinner if we want to eat at a halfway decent hour. Even my sleep is steeped in a measure of awareness. Ever since college, I've had the ability to wake up at a predesignated time simply by thinking about it as I go to sleep. I rarely go without the safety net of an alarm, but if push came to shove, I'd rarely be late.

Of course, like all of us, there was a blissful time in my life where I couldn't even read a digital clock, much less a traditional one. More is to the point, I didn't care to. I had no need to worry about time. My parents and other relatives or sitters handled all that for me. They told me where to be and when like some real time acting gig. They even costumed me. I didn't bother to tell time and it didn't bother me a bit.

Somehow, eventually, I had gotten it in my head that what I needed most was a clock radio. The one I had in mind was a pretty serious machine in my estimation. Dual alarms, sleep timer, wood finish, red LED display, AM/FM radio. I believe it was a Panasonic, and I am willing to bet that quite a few of you, dear readers, can picture the exact one I coveted (and eventually got) just from reading that passage. Suddenly, with this new machine present, my room was a place where things happened at certain times. I had alarms, which would serve to ensure that I was ready to go wherever I was supposed to be taken the next day. I was on a schedule, and it felt great. I remember feeling especially close to the machine at night, when I would employ the sleep timer to its fullest, sometime resetting it just before it shut off after 60 minutes. Staring at those red numbers, listening to talk radio or music, I felt warmth and connection. A primitive version of what we all do all day now with our phones and pads.

I hadn't thought of that feeling in years and years but last night, as I glanced across the bed to see what time it was like I do most nights, it all came rushing back. There I was once again not caring what numbers were being shown to me, but being entranced by the glow of the display. Amazed to think that what now requires blogs, news feeds, and videos was once accomplished by a simple set of three or four digits and a DJ in the middle of the night.

I'm the last person to advocate for any sort of rollback on general technology dependence. I love the iPad I am writing this on and the phone I will post it from. I love Garmins and Sirius radio and iBeacons and EZPasses. The number of things in my life I can do through my phone is exactly what I dreamed of as a little boy. But the lesson that time taught me last night is the same lesson I got from spending time abroad earlier this summer. While we were in Spain, my wife and I were constantly looking up. Robbed of our non-stop cell service and the wealth or resources that come with it, we made plans in the comfort of the hotel wifi and then simply ventured out. Sometimes the plans worked, and other times changes were made by us or forced on us. Either way, it didn't matter.

The point is this: this stuff is wonderful. It's full of wonder. I saw a quote from Ray Kurzweil recently that really stretched my head. He said that a kid with a smartphone in his hand today has access to more information than the President of the United States did just 20 years ago. The effect that fact will have on the planet is hard to measure, or even to conceive of. I don't know how it will impact us, but I know that the impact will be less rich if facts like that are taken for granted. If we can't look back through the years and remember where we came from, we could easily lose track of who we are. If we lose our sense of wonder, it'll happen in no time.