The Inner Clock...

A lot of animals have reliable inner clocks: bears know when to hibernate; geese know when to fly North or South depending on the season; cats know when it's nap time; dogs know when it's time to get the mail, go for a walk, etc; and the list could be rather exhaustive.

I posit that humans are also born with a reliable inner clock. I'm not sure when we lose touch with our own clock and start to rely solely on the man-made evil alarm clock, but it happens. Perhaps we learn to turn off our natural in-born clock from our parents.  Schedules can be demanding, and if we choose to stay up late to watch an old movie for the 100th time, then we probably need something very dependable to wake us up when we are not done sleeping.

God in his wisdom gave us the only time differential we really need: night and day; light and dark. Humans are the ones who needed to break time down into hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds, nano-seconds, etc.  As civilization, I'm using the term generally here, not all people are civilized in the strictest sense of the word, progresses into the mind-set of discovering all there is to know, it has chopped everything into Riemann slices that grow ever and ever so small that we lose sight of the big picture.

What are the forces that drive the human?  Eat, sleep, learn, be creative, be productive, enjoy whatever we do, and seek wisdom. These may not be the exact forces that drive everyone, but they are a general core. Along with these forces of natural life, we also become aware of others, and grow into helping those around us, as in the community we bond with and live with.

I believe that all babies, animal and human alike, are born with the best clocks. I like to think the Irish understood this especially well in one old drinking song:  The Moonshiner. Here is the chorus:

I'm a rambler, I'm a gambler, I'm a long way from home
And if you don't like me, well, leave me alone
I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink when I'm dry
And the moonshine don't kill me, I'll live til I die.

What if dieters, or just people in general would listen to the inner clock that calls for food when you're hungry, or drink when you're thirsty?  All the advice about life and food comes charging in to my brain:

     Eat breakfast like a king; lunch like a prince; and dinner like a pauper.

     Put your fork down when you're full.

     Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Now, what if all we needed was: to eat when we are hungry, drink when we are dry, go to bed when we are tired?  How would the world operate?  

Those who have discarded the inner clock in favor of the 'working time clock' would not stop what they are doing; all those who don't even have a clock to alarm them would not stop the way they are living; the bears and the geese and the cats and dogs would not stop what they do; and they children are trained to be good little worker bees would not stop.  

My advice:  throw away the human machinations of time control and listen to your own clock!  It is more powerful than you can imagine! 

Live well til you die!