I hate daylight savings

Originally posted 3/14/07

Did you know that we are on daylight savings time longer than we are on standard time? Why is this? Some folks will tell you it is to help the farmers by giving them more time to get the chores done. That is bull. Farmers live by natural time, not the artificial time of a clock. Farmers actually get more annoyed than others I know about daylight savings. Some will tell you it is for energy conservation. This is partly true. Putting the high point of the sun (noon) in the middle of the work day (1pm is halfway from 9 to 5) does maximize our daylight working hours.

I think this is stupid and egotistical. It is stupid because the wise man would simply adjust his artificial-time-based working hours to 8 to 4 to maximize daylight hours during the official workday. It is egotistical because rather than adjusting ourselves to reflect nature, we try to make it appear that we have altered nature to suit ourselves. Instead of changing the workday to 8-4, we have simply renamed 8 am as 9 am and 4 pm as 5 pm. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, instead of calling it a duck, we dress it up in wool and call it a sheep.

So if it is a matter of semantics, why am I so bothered by it? Because we are forced by society to follow the stupid artificial time of clocks instead of the natural time of the sun. I understand the need for standardized time and time zones, but let's base it on the actual time please. Change America's working hours to 8-4, teach people to get up a little earlier out of desire rather than being tricked into it, and leave our poor clocks alone.

And why the hell do we try to save daylight in the summer when daylight is so abundant? Why don't we try to save daylight in the winter when light is more scarce? Pretty soon we will be on daylight savings time all year again, then they will introduce daylight double savings, to put our clocks into a 2 hour difference with the sun. Just you watch.