Several times a day in several places you’ll go it is almost for certain you will hear a cell phone give off some sort of notification or alarm. Because we know that sound is meant for us or someone specifically for a special reason we jump to it. Well recently there was a situation in my domicile where there were no cell phones and thus no alarms not even to wake up people for work. This prompted the question, “what the hell did we do before alarm clocks?” More importantly how did this thing called the alarm get to be such a critical part of everybody’s life?
Well as it happens for most of recorded history and before that human beings didn’t set alarms and somehow we got by. Now there were of course roosters and morning doves and of course cats are always good for waking people up. However it wasn’t until good old Levi Hutchins an industrious early American invented the alarm in 1787 when we started wrecking the natural sleep cycles of folks. Now this first alarm was limited in that it only went off at 4:)) in the morning. I guess Levi had to stoke the fire, grind the coffee, milk the cow—nobody wanted that straight black coffee) and then he had to wake up the rest of the neighborhood by cranking up his accordion?
Well that once a day system worked pretty well for a good long time as it wasn’t until halfway through the next century or 1867 when a French inventor put together an alarm that could be set at various times. Way to go Antoine Redier … I would hazard a guess that this dude and the person who invented the necktie has been cursed by more humans than any other notorious human in history to date.
Seeking Peace and Joy and why not to get “Alarmed” About it.
So the alarm evolved from a once a day thing to a noise you could set. Now we get alarms when someone sends us a post on social media, when we are supposed to get up in the morning, when it’s time to change the batteries in things and charge the batteries in other things. Ww can set alarms for anything at any time and these alarms can make almost any sound. We are now programmed to be alarmed about everything all the time. We rarely pay attention unless someone claims it is “breaking” news. However, all this alarm stuff sort of leads to the question..
If we can have all these alarms all the time then is all this stuff really that alarming? Maybe not… maybe we have evolved or devolved into a human race that expects to fear missing the start of things or missing them altogether. Maybe some alarms are needed, however, maybe some can be turned off. Are your friends really going to quit texting or tweeting you if you take 2 minutes to answer rather than 4 seconds? A lot of employers complain that workers pay more attention to their social media than their work… but how many employers would say “sleep when you are tired and then come on in to work rested.?”
Okay… maybe some of us need reminders and prompting some of the time and yet what would happen if none of the apps on our phone had to tell us to pay attention? Wouldn’t it be great if our smart phones could be set up to shut off all alarms automatically two days a week… let’s say on the weekend just so we didn’t live on pins and needles? Or maybe every alarm should have to cry out…”BE AFRAID BE AFRAID BE AFRAID” so that we would realize that many of the folks that urge us to set alarms are really prompting us to be afraid of missing every little thing and the price is only a little peace.. and the chance to understand the flow of life you might prosper from?
Anyway… time’s up… how do I know? Not from an alarm… so relax and think about this…
Peace
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