Today while flipping through some short stories online I came across this small story which provoked such thoughts in me that I felt like sharing it with you all.
It goes like this...
"Lovely watch! exclaims the youngster looking at my wristwatch and then stares at it fascinated, "You can see into it, what's all that machinery? "
"It's a winding watch," I tell him, "What you see inside is the machinery that converts the wind into actually running the small hand, the big one and the seconds hand!
"A winding watch?" asks the same youngster now staring at my apparatus with unconcealed fascination, "You mean you got to wind it to run it?"
"Yep, every morning without fail, hold wind between thumb and finger and keep winding till it gets difficult. One wind lasts twenty-four hours!"
I look at him staring at my watch with focused concentration and my thoughts wander to other things at home one used to wind to keep working. I remember the old grandfather's clock that tick-tocked its way through my childhood; it had belonged to my granddad and came home after his death. I'd watched curiously as my father wound it every Saturday and then one day he'd turned to me, "Want to wind it Bob?"
"Sure," I said and from that day the job was mine and I continued doing it diligently till the day it just stopped working.
"Uncle!"
I looked around, then realized uncle was me, "What happens if you forget to wind it?
Ah! but you don't!"
"No, you don't. You wind the watch as soon as you get up, It's like brushing your teeth," I tell him.
You never forgot to wind your watch! And you didn't forget to wind the grandfather clock on Saturday. You just didn't. There was no cell phone to beep a reminder, no computer to flash one for you and no secretary to ask, "Sir did you wind your clock today?" You just did it."
Before reading further down just ponder for a while and you will surely be navigated to deeper strata of thoughts and then you'll be able to easily connect to what I felt.
What was it we had I wonder that made us do things automatically; and the answer comes fast and sure, as I grin to myself, we had clockwork!
Life went about with the precision of a ticking clock: You got up on time with no alarm to wake you, went about getting ready, ate your breakfast, packed your school bag, walked to the bus stop, caught the bus along with the rest of the crowd, reached on time, listened to the teacher, came home, did your home work, played a little, read, ate and went to sleep.
Somewhere between you saw your busy mom and dad, who had their own schedules and lives to lead, a lot to do with earning enough to putting you through school and college. But life went on like clock work, only difference being you had to give it the daily wind:
You put in effort you got results. You wound the key, life worked.
And then I realize and smile, maybe we need to get back to the old giving ourselves the wind days and bring a little discipline into the chaos that's a happening in today's spoon fed fastrack automatic world..!
