I don't know about you, but for me, on Oct. 29, Daylight Savings Time was pure liberation. An hour in which I can do all the things I ordinarily don't have time for, like cleaning my floor or shaving really carefully, or just relaxing and shedding the stress of the week - it was almost too good to be true.
If only we could have this hour every Sunday, what a wonderful place our world would be!
This, dear readers, can happen.
Brace yourselves for the chronological revolution of the modern age. I call it the Nexus. Here's how it works: Every day from Monday to Saturday, at 3:30 a.m., all clocks are shifted forward to 3:40 a.m. In an age where our computers and cellphones automatically update their clocks, it isn't so inconceivable that watches and clocks will be able to do this soon, but until then, just set your clock ahead 10 minutes before you go to bed. Then, on Sunday at 9 p.m., clocks are set back to 8 p.m. to make up for the 60 minutes lost during the week. This hour from 8 to 9, the one that isn't counted, will be known as the Nexus Hour.
There's only one rule during the Nexus Hour: No one is allowed to be paid. It's an hour for people to spend with families, to indulge in those activities they don't have during the week, or simply to stick themselves in a La-Z-Boy. The one thing you can't do is be employed. No workaholics using Nexus to get that extra leg up at the office.
The only exceptions to this rule are emergency workers, first responders - the people you call 911 for - and what have you. Whoever has to work during Nexus Hour for the well-being of the population as a whole gets paid double their regular wage.
Think of the innumerable benefits that would come from the Nexus Hour. First of all, with stress down, the population will be much healthier, physically and psychologically. Suicides will be way down, as will heart disease, the number one cause of death in the United States. It will benefit the economy as well. People will invest in the hobbies they couldn't ordinarily partake in, which will bolster spending. Plus, happier people generally contribute more to the economy, both by putting in better, more productive hours at work and by spending more on luxury items. The extra tax revenue from Nexus will be staggering.
As far as the 60 lost minutes from the week, it'll only consciously affect the people who are awake at 3:30 a.m., and I would argue that the vast majority of them don't really care precisely what time it is. The 10 minutes of lost sleep a night is a bit costly, but on the other hand, it might encourage people to get to bed earlier to make up for that time, which could only be a good thing.
You might be thinking that, amazing as this sounds, it's just too crazy to work. The thing is, though, that we've already got lunacies like this built into our calendar system by accident. The leap year, for instance, does just this - every day is a second and change too short, and once every four years that adds up to a full 24 hours that we get back in the form of February 29. We subscribe to these things out of habit and glitch. Why not adopt them for the sake of widespread bliss?
Will Guzzardi '09 cooked this one up at a Ben & Jerry's with his friends.
