A Musical Eclipse
What ticking clocks can teach us about relationships
You can learn a lot about relationships by sitting in a quiet room and listening to two clocks tick.
One of them might be a bit louder than the other. One might have a tick tock. The other, just a lonely tick. One might have a more melodic chime. The gears and inner mechanics are likely different and thus they have unique ticking rhythms. But the key is the joined rhythm and the song they create together.
Like most of the important things in life, this joined rhythm lives out it’s existence in cycles. One of the clocks sets the pace and the other fills in the gaps.
If you listen long enough, you can experience the full cycle. A majority of the time it sounds like a dynamic and changing beat. Not quite a perfect unison, but it’s pleasing and you can hear cooperation and even structure.
You can differentiate the two clocks.
The low point is when it sounds not only like total chaos, but as if both clocks momentarily forget that their combined song is sweeter than either song they could play alone. But luckily, this is a just a small percentage of the full cycle.
Alternatively, you will notice that on the other side of the circle, the clocks are ticking in synchronized perfection. It’s the rare sweet spot when both are ticking along as they were designed, and yet there is no chaos.
They work as one.
Like a musical eclipse, it is a seemingly reduced rhythm as they tick to a nearly identical beat.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
One cannot expect this all the time. After all, they are different. Their function is the same, but their designer gave them uniqueness and personality.
But if you understand the nature of the cycle, the hope of unison can ease the struggles through chaos.
Wisdom is not hidden. Open your eyes and ears to the ordinary, along with the unique.
Good things to come,
Luke Blackburn
