Clocks
The sound of a ticking clock is something we rarely hear now. With computers sat in our pockets and wrists, the passing of time is silent. It lacks the steadiness of a clock’s metronome.
When you hear ticking, you become aware of the other rhythms which define your life and its passage. The slow breathing which you realise it more shallow and dangerous, more fragile than you would imagine. The gentle thrumming of your heart beat, a sign that your blood pressure is higher than it should be.
A clock ticking is mechanism brought to bear on the world’s fluidity. It fences in time and comes from the same age as enclosure in England. As we carved acres of commons with newly made hedges and fences, so we divided our lives into the steady tick of the clock.
The buzzing wings of an insect also follow a regular rhythm, but they rise and fall in intensity as the energy of life strains harder or more softly in the creatures’ muscles. Fibres twitch, firing faster as the insect’s nervous system points it in one direction or another, up or down, responding to desire and danger in equal measure.
The beating of a heart. The buzz of an insects wings. The ticking of a clock. All setting rhythm into the world.