Independents

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Thoughts triggered by the book "Longitude" by Dava Sobel

Took some time over the Memorial Day break to read Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time  

This quick read brings to life the impact of Harrison’s Clocks on not only the world of navigation but on time itself. While readable in a couple days, the story of the near century it took John Harrison to achieve his task of developing a clock (and then watch) that could assist in navigating longitude is captivating and as full of villains, suspense, and technology as any Bond story.

While the end is known from the beginning, I’d challenge any of us to have for a single year (ok, call me lazy – a decade?) the fortitude and conviction that Harrison carried for several decades.

While I suspect I knew this prior, the reminder that the globally accepted 24 hour day starting and ending at the Greenwich Mean Longitude is only 135 old this year furthers the importance of time – and the telling of time – on everything we are as a species; from when to pray, work, meet, sleep, rise, and celebrate; to how fast, slow, until, and since some place or moment is.

I suspect, with no evidence, that more people can tell time on a traditional dial than speak any given language, share any given religion, or any given geography. Time is the thing most of us have in common.

I will admit that it is the mechanical nature I find so compelling about clocks and watches. Made from the earth (wood, bronze, brass, jewels) rather than observation (as the astrological methods are) mechanical watches feel more grounded, intentional, and active to me, even (dare I say ) magical as they come as close to perpetual machines as I’ve ever seen.

Even digital watches somehow feel more like locking nature in a bottle than “making” something. (Apologies to all electrical engineers. Please send letters to…) And, worn every day an automatic mechanical watch could run one’s entire lifetime whereas a digital would run out of power several times. Magic, I tell you! Magic!

So why Independents watchmakers? Because for me it is individual watchmakers like John Harrison (and dozens of others mentioned in the book) who are the performers producing this magic. Yes, brands are made up of a collection of people, but I’m seeking the soul of the watchmaker not just the product; the dreamer not just the manufacturer.

Next on the reading list – David Landes’s Revolutions in Time

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