Stories from a collector.
Time destroys, regulates, judges, and eludes.
In and of itself time bring nothing but grieve and sorrow, doubt and failure.
There is no avoiding the effects of time, it destroys all it touches. The body nor mind can escape its destructive influence. Culture, style, societies and cities, even the rocks that make up the earth itself decay over time and turn to dust. Romain Gauthier (a watchmaker from the Vallee du Jour) sums this up in his motto “Le Temps nous fixe des limites que la passion n’a pas…” which translated to “Time sets us limits that passion has not...”
Every moment is regulated by time – when we wake, eat, sleep, pray, meet, celebrate, and more. Most actions have a start and finish time, and on a given date. Even those not engaged in business day-to-day find their leisure activities regulated in the same way. How we are born, how fast we move, and how we age are shown related to time in trimesters, miles per hour, and years of live. We respect and honor those with more years as much as those with more wisdom, success, or accomplishments.
Time judges. Stephen McGonigle (an Irish watchmaker) said “Time has no respect for anything achieved in its absence.” An interesting concept on its own, but we go further and ask if an idea or design will “stand the test of time” and say we “need time to think” showing the power time has to judge and even form our thoughts. Yet time is fickle in this area, celebrating both those who achieve a goal in the shortest time and placing more value on those achievements that take more time.
The Roman poet Horace encourages us to “Carpe Diem” – to literally “pluck the day” – given its elusiveness. We seem to never have enough time and are coached to live life as if it was our last day.
And yet despite (or maybe because) of all this cruelty, we allow time to enter our collective and individual worlds to the very depth of humanity and society (or do we truly have any other option). The more honest instinct might be to break off the relationship and run the other way.
Some argue we “created” or “invented” time and thus its role in our world. Yet little of the cruelty above required an understanding of time to exist – time will regulate, destroy, and elude none the less - so we certainly did not invent it.
It is better to accept, as Stephen suggests, that from our earliest consciousness humanity has tried to understand time, to measure it, to capture it, or to control it. Despite recognizing the basics of time (a rotations of the earth on its axis = one day; a rotation around the sun = one year) we have created an impressive set of larger and smaller units – fractions of a second, seconds, minutes, hours, time zones, weeks, months, variations of a “year”, decades, centuries, millenniums, and more. We may have a better understanding, and certainly better measurement, but we haven’t captured or controlled it.
One watch collector made this point clear when, after hearing the term “time keeping”, he shared his belief that clocks and watches are about measuring time, not keeping time as we don’t really “keep” time do we.
Measuring time with a mechanical movement is one of (if not the) oldest, continuous, and most global technology known. The base technology – a spring or stored energy, escapement, train, and hands/display – has been around for over 400 years. Technology has advanced the design process, parts making, finishing, and assembly, but the core technology remained unchanged until the quartz movement revolution in the mid 1970’s.
Any watch or clock maker will tell you that precision measurement is key. The British Parliament thought so when it offered £20,000 in 1714 (over £3 million today) for a clock accurate enough to allow longitudinal navigation. Over 50 years later Harrison’s seaworthy clocks allowed East or West navigation. Three million pounds and 50 year for delivery – this makes a new Roger Smith seem reasonable!
Yet despite the amazing accuracy available in mechanical movements, digital technology is more accurate. So why would anyone be interested in devices beyond the latest technical marvels; why would anyone pay more than the required minimum for a time piece today? To be fair, there are hordes of individuals who are happy - even ecstatic - to get the latest Apple Watch and maintain their abusive and co-dependent relationship with time.
For others, a mechanical watch or clock is the antidote to time’s cruelty. It is a celebration of humanities inventiveness, craftsmanship, and artistry; it brings “life” to time with moving hands, springs, gears and a heart like beat; it may not “keep” time, but it does seem to tease out what little beauty there maybe in time.
And unlike the inhuman accuracy of quartz technology, mechanical movements reflect humanity and our constant attempts at perfection - while accepting that we ourselves are not perfect. If a watch can be world class with a /- 5 second error rate a day (rather than /-0.07 seconds for quartz) I can cut myself a little bit of slack.
If time is cruel, personal time measurement should be merciful, compassionate, and stimulating of the heart and mind.
-Reproduced courtesy of the collector/writer. Originally published on WatchProSite-