A Weekly Curiosity Journal
It’s summer now. It’s the beginning of July, which means the beginning of an adventurous month. It’s also very hot and dusty outside, so the most enjoyable way to spend the day is to dedicate some time to creativity.
There were two random rabbit holes that I went deeply into throughout the past week:
- Time zones
- The role of luck in spreading creative work
A question popped before sleeping and I had to chase it the next morning: How did the world agree on a universal decision for standard time zones around the world? Here are snippets of what I understood:
Timekeeping systems is a fascinating subject because at first glance, it appears to be purely scientific. However, it’s a multi-layered subject and it was driven by politics and economics just as much as science if not more.
Once upon simple times, people rose with the sun, found their noon when the sun is highest in the sky, and ended their day after it sets.
Those people who were traveling, either by horses or by walking, their pace was very slow. The time difference travelers experience would simply not exceed half an hour. On the other hand, those who were working and staying in their own hometown, their local time was simply the number which the solar clock hand was pointing on.
Little did they know that when the Industrial Revolution began, production mattered too much in factories. Too much that they have made local solar clocks run slower during daytime just to squeeze more productivity out of workers. Then railroads emerged which means traveling at a faster pace. Traveling faster means reaching further destinations which then leads to more significant time differences. Without having a way to “control time”, people started to suffer and face problems. It could be as small as being significantly behind their schedules, or as big as deadly collisions because train schedules were set based on different local times. We can say that standard time zones is a product of the Industrial Revolution.
I thought I knew a few things about time zones due to the international Zoom meetings, but it turns out I know nothing! I just recently knew that China follows one time zone only despite the fact that it spans over 5 timezones geographically.
Time is scientific, time is economical, time is cultural, and time surely is political.
The role of luck in spreading creative works
It’s an obvious concept, but I’ve been spending some time and sleeping on this thought in the past week. It’s a concept which has haunted artists, writers, entrepreneurs, or anyone else in any industry since eternity because it makes them question if they’re as good as the ones with good luck.
There is a statement which many of us are afraid to admit: many published authors or famous composers from ancient history got known mainly because they’re lucky (for few of them luck was the only reason). If the very same well-praised work got published by a less lucky modern writer/composer, it’s highly likely that they would get booed at. Therefore, we hold a biased opinions based on the intellectual social pressure from our peers.
This curiosity intensified in two moments:
One moment when I was reading a novel by Gabriel García Márquez which doesn’t seem to be my cup of tea, but it’s too early to say that. My husband knows me too well and can read subtle signs when he feels like I’m forcing myself to read a book. He talked about this concept of needing to worship the works of the world’s favorite author for no reason other than social intellectual pressure. There’s a huge truth to this, and I fell for this a lot of times (thankfully, much less times as I grow up). I have my reasons to continue reading some novels which I don’t seem to like. For instance, one of the reasons is that I like to form an exact and a well-constructed opinion of why I didn’t like a certain novel.
The second moment of curiosity came when I was writing music ideas and also thinking about my fellow music composers who published lovely works. I entertained a silly thought: what if somebody came in, took one of our pieces which are composed in classical style, and attributed it to a composer from that era. What would happen? Will people think that the music piece is super sophisticated and deeper than it actually is? You know the answer. My point is not daring to compare myself as someone who composes part-time to someone who basically dedicated his lifetime to composing, but it’s a silly entertained thought which deserves some attention. Take this example to any field you personally relate to and you’ll understand why I’m entertaining it.
This isn’t statement to lose hope as much as gaining more understanding of how things work to help us navigate our way through the world and to be easier on ourselves. Many creatives have lived and composed great works, then died buried with their works simply because they weren’t lucky enough to get the attention which they deserved (and vice versa).
While not denying the big role of luck in the creative game, I don’t believe that all situations are completely out of control. We can’t control luck directly, but we can certainly control multiple factors which control luck, Dr. James H. Austin and many others have talked and written books about this topic.
I hope that sharing my weekly curiosities has sparked some curiosities for you. I want to leave you with one last thought: dedicate some time for free-flowing creativity with your favorite drink and document it, you’ll be surprised by how many rabbit holes appear in your way.
Feel free to reach out to me through:
Email: anwaraalkandarii@gmail.com
IG: Anwaralkandarii_
Twitter: AnwarAlKandarii
