There is no good reason for screwing around with people's biorhythms.

So... why the fuck do "we" ("we" here meaning "our" governments, of course, rather than, y'know, actual, rational-thinking people) insist on putting the clocks back, and doing just that?

Daylight Savings Time Worse Than Previously Thought

In the UK, the clocks went back by an hour on Saturday night (or Sunday morning, depending on your perspective). I don't mind it when the clocks go forward in spring, but it always feels like a particularly cruel slap in the face for me when the clocks go back in autumn - it makes the bad-enough-already effects of living on this bipolar planet even worse, rubbing it into the face of every single seasonally depressive person that winter's coming.

The so-called rationale behind changing the time zone twice a year has never made any sense to me - supposedly "saving" daylight in the summer, when there is more of it anyway, and then taking it away again in the winter, when there is already least of it in most people's waking day? That looks like a particularly cruel application of capitalism's "he that has shall be given more, and he that has not, even what he has will be taken away" philosophy - like deliberately exaggerating a seasonal pattern of change which is already documented to cause depression to not just a minority, but pretty much everyone.

If i was in charge, i would make the clocks go forward in winter, which would, for the vast majority of people in the UK, make winter more bearable - after all, i would estimate that over 90% of people are either asleep or at work at the time of morning when changing the clocks makes a difference, while the vast majority of those people are likely to be awake and not at work in the early evening when they would get daylight if things went the other way - meaning that it would be possible to do things like gardening after work. (I won't even try to critique the concept of the 9-5 working day here, otherwise this post would end up dissertation length...)

However, really, why change the clocks at all? As John J. Miller says:

There is simply no way to "save daylight." People can spin the hands of their clocks like roulette wheels, but come Monday here in Washington, D.C., we're still going to have sunshine for about 12 hours and 45 minutes. The sun can rise at a time of day we call dawn or Howdy Doody Time or whatever — but the stubborn facts of astronomy are at work here and they can't be wished away.

(Oddly, pretty much everything i can find on the net in terms of comment about this issue is American - there seems to be virtually nothing from the UK...)

Changing anything arbitraily causes distress to people, like many autistic people, who find it difficult to adapt to changes in their routines. (As someone who feels a strong need to always know what the time is, i get severely confused and stressed trying to change the time display on my phone, which functions as my watch.) People with other cognitive disabilities are also likely to be confused by the irrational and unnecessary change (potentially leading to them being punished for turning up to work, doctor's appointments, etc at the wrong time). People who need to take medication at regular times, especially if they need assistance to do so but their PAs/staff are employed with contract hours according to the "official" clock, could face potentially highly dangerous consequences - so this is a disability discrimination issue...

Some people say that they prefer to get up when it is light in the morning - for me, it makes absolutely no difference, because it takes me at least 2 hours after waking up to be capable of even noticing, let alone caring about, anything outside of my bedroom curtains. (I often don't even bother opening my curtains at all in the winter - in fact, in winter i would prefer to live in a room without a window...)

Also, the often unexaminedly-stated assertion that changing the time zone somehow benefits farmers is complete bollocks - what time humans decide to call it has absolutely no effect on animals or crops (although, in the case of animals such as dairy cows, the animals themselves are distressed and disrupted by the time change). And all the supposed "energy-saving" benefits that are gained in the summer are necessarily equally lost in the winter or vice versa. The only people in any way connected with farming who could possibly benefit from it are the big businesses with whom, in a capitalist society, farmers are forced to deal with to sell their produce.

Thankfully, there actually is a campaign against changing the time - at least, in the US (whether there is one in the UK i don't know, but if there is i'd like to join it)...

This has kind of got me thinking about how it could be interpreted in the context of the industrial/capitalist concept of work and the work/leisure dichotomy, and how increasing people's available working-for-money time is seen as a valid goal, whereas increasing people's available "leisure" time is not... but i don't really even know where to start researching on that (potentially huge) subject...

Ironically, i thought that one possible good consequence of the clocks going back would be to adjust my current sleeping/waking pattern to something somewhat closer to that of the "standard" working day (alleviating my Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder - hmmm, i wonder how many other disorders i can find out i have from Wikipedia) - but i think the confusion and stress has actually made it worse - today i woke up at 2pm (or 3pm British summer time), the latest by an hour i've woken up so far this year... :(