Beautiful and created by people, this wind up pocket watch. Created by beautifully creative people. It tells time, it ticks and it tocks, it is a delicate collection of springs, cogs, and other moving parts that work together to keep track of time, an invention of ours. It's "this o'clock" and "that many minutes," it tells us.
How valuable to enjoy and create and discuss such inventions of ours!!
And at the same time how silly to let them enslave us. Our creations and inventions and ideas of success. Our technology and rules and ideas of value.
This wind up pocket watch does not decide when my child should move out or when my husband should finish fixing the floor in our kitchen. This wind up pocket watch isn't interested in how many ticks or tocks it takes for my brother to speak clearly or for me to finish writing my novel. This wind up pocket watch is a beautiful invention, and it helps us make plans - but it doesn't decide or dictate.
We are a beautifully creative species! We like to invent technology, rules, systems, labels, races, and recipes. Too often, however, we forget that those things are inventions of the moment. Necessarily needing to be re-imagined and set aside.
My son bought himself this wind up pocket watch because he loves the way it sounds, the way it looks, the way it feels, its independence from batteries, and because he likes to imagine that it's a time machine. Not once has it been the boss of him or a tool for telling him when to be somewhere or how much more time he has to finish a thing. Admittedly, though, he could use a little of that. My son lives almost entirely in his head and some scheduling could do him good.
Which, of course, is why we so beautifully create these things to begin with!! There is a gorgeous balance to be had. A place where our inventions and rules are always known for what they are and a comfortable connection is kept with the reason we create them. A place where we set aside inventions and rules when they harm even a small number of us or our planet.
A place where we fully know that our creations are a way to connect with each other, expressions of the soul, and tools for survival, easily set aside when they no longer give us these gifts.
There is a gorgeous balance to be had, and we are fully capable of insisting on it!
I think it's time.
Hugs, smiles, and love!!
Autism Answers with Tsara Shelton (Facebook)
