One hundred years ago, time was truly relative. Town halls held clock towers that governed time within the reach of the sound of its bell chime. Correct time varied as much as fifteen minutes from one small town to the next. It was Sunday, yes, and around 3 PM, yes. But 2:45, 3:00 or 3:15, well who knew? Who cared?
With the advent of railroads, pocket watches, teletype and radio, time was being sliced into smaller and smaller bits. Satellites, the Internet and smartphones accelerated the interlocking web of time and crushed all sense of place. It no longer mattered where you were, but when.
Within one lifetime entire generations of entrepreneurs and robber barons flower, go to seed and blow away on the wind, replaced by the next. Old rules don’t apply and new ones haven’t been struck. No matter, they will only need to change again.
Unless within us is a thread we can cling to, to gather a community, to pull ourselves together before all is lost. Unless we can find and reach a new high ground.
Richard Authier Lee 