Thursday, May 12, 2011

Focal or practical: A tale of two clocks.

This is the story of two clocks hanging close to each other in our lounge room. One, an “el-cheapo” plastic make from China but brought here in Australia. The other, a handmade wooden one, made and purchased in Germany when we cruised through their last year. Both work well and keep good time, but one is there purely for focal reasons, while the other is there purely for functional reasons. Can you guess which is which?
Yes! It is the cheap plastic Chinese one that we use to tell the time from, while we just admire and use the better German one as a talking piece. Why? Because, ALTHOUGH IT WORKS PERFECTLY AND KEEPS PERFECT TIME, It also works backwards, rather than Clockwise! Thus unless you can tell the time in reverse, it is far easier, just to use the cheaper one for practical reasons, and to use the wooden one simply as a conversation starter!
Which leads me to think of ourselves here, and how often we aren’t the practical use we were meant to be to others, simply because we work differently to others. True If we went to the trouble, we could learn to use the wooden clock, for its intended purpose as timepiece, but don’t, because it is more trouble than it’s worth to learn. Again what about us? Is our contribution to society being missed out on, all because we want to do things our own way and not the normal way, and want others to change their way of thinking when we not only won’t, but refuse to do so? I will leave that with you to think on for now.

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