Watch the elegant sound of time

I have a watch.

While awaiting my connecting flight in Bangkok, it was purchased for me.

I have owned watches before, but this one is special. Not just for the sentiment behind its purchase, for that is not for this blog.

It does not have a battery.

It ticks. It absolutely ticks!

There is an entire generation that has grown up on quartz watches that require batteries to make them go. There are variations on this theme including solar powered watches and digital ones and ones with faces that light up and others that tell you the phases of the moon and where you are in the world and whether you will meet a mysterious stranger in black tomorrow. Most of these are silent and the only noise they make is if they have an alarm function: a subdued or raucous beep, depending on their family background and upbringing.

They are accurate enough to clock atoms decaying. Or racing cars completing laps. Or lap dancers setting hearts racing.

But none of these watches tick.

Mine does.

There is something wonderfully reassuring and healthy and heart-warming when I stretch my arms behind my head for a moment's exercise at the keyboard, and as my wrist lies near my ear, my watch chatters busily but respectfully in my ear. It is an unobtrusive ticking - my wrist needs to be right next to my ear for me to hear it - but it is unmistakable. It's as if it is mimicking my heart beat, a regular life-affirming metronome.

My watch has a plain austere face: nothing showy, nothing bold. No date indicator, no second hand. Thin unobtrusive Roman numerals and anorexic hands. It tells the time. That's all that it does. It doesn't even tell me the time to the nearest second or even the nearest minute, merely the nearest five minutes.

There is a philosophical approach behind this old-fashioned method of measuring time; an acknowledgment that in our headlong rush towards productivity and efficiency and time management we have lost sight of something deeper, something more subtle.

It has a black leather strap with a simple buckle and two loops. No Velcro or elastic or clasps.

It does not command attention from the observer, but it demands attention from the owner. It is an automatic, which means I need to wear it for it to continue to work. It derives its inspiration and momentum from the movement of my arm as I go through the day. As I go through my daily life, my watch draws its sustenance from me, not from the entropy of some battery.

And it ticks to thank me for continuing to give it life. The watch has me.