Namaste, Welcome to SAM-VAD (Together In Conversation), this is where we try to draw your attention to things that matter and the importance of our attention, why is that? Because ‘let us remember this again, ‘What we give our Attention to matters,’ as Our life’s experience would ultimately amount to whatever we had paid attention to.
Attention: is as fundamental as food; and we go blundering about, seeking ways to assuage the craving, instead of learning how to provide ourselves with what we need, sensibly and calmly. Once our attention is drawn to the mechanism of why and what we give attention to, it is as if a veil has been stripped off and we become freer in our action and choices. And that is our endavour.
This week I bring to your attention another excerpt which we have titled – The Town Clock from the book titled ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ – Technology’s capture and control of our minds and Culture by James Burke and Robert Ornstein.
This book is about the people who gave us the world in exchange for our minds. The gifts we accepted from them gave us the power to change the way we lived, but doing so also changed the way we thought. It is a stunning account of how scientific thinking and technology have gained control over the way we perceive and value the world.
The Town Clock
The gift of the clock immediately made possible new forms of wider, more effective marshaling of social forces. Demand for clocks from royal courts and from the growing number of towns throughout Europe was overwhelming. Town clocks gave guilds and governments the means to regulate all behavior. In Brussels, textile workers rose at a dawn bell, weavers and twisters ended their day with an evening bell, and there was a special clock for cobblers, In 1355, in Amiens, France, the city government would issue an ordnance “concerning the time when the workers… should go each morning to work, when they should eat and when to return to work after eating; and also in the evening when they should quit work for the day,” and they used a special bell for this purpose.
Excerpt from ‘The Axemaker’s Gift’ by James Burke and Robert Ornstein
I am sure that you will enjoy reading this book; you can buy your copy from the following link:
Enjoy reading it with your family, friends and near and dear one’s.
Namaste!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | Android | Pandora | iHeartRadio | JioSaavn | Podchaser | Gaana | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS