My grandmother has a an older Howard style Grandfather Clock in her living room. It is one that my Grandfather enjoyed very much. The machinery inside the clock is rather amazing and works through a counterbalance system that when you raise the weights, will slowly descend causing the clock internal gears to adjust. It is quite incredible that this clock tells time so well, in terms of accurately staying true to seconds, minutes, hours.
Once you get the time correct, which is no easy feat, the clock will stay true so long as you wind the weights back up on a regular basis. In fact, you can reset those weights at exactly the same time every week and that clock will operate basically forever. I imagine the gears will eventually wear down, but not anytime soon. It is so precise that everything spins in perfect harmony and the clock would probably not fail for a millennia or more.
What will wear down is the human responsible for doing the winding of the weights. If you were to keep up with the weekly winding cycle, then all would be well. That is if the human themselves can keep a consistent schedule, just like clockwork. Thinking about this last night, it led me to this thought. Is there anything that I do in my life, “just like clockwork?”
There are a few, but I wonder, could I become more precise in certain behaviors? Perhaps if I was doing things more like clockwork, they would be easier to do!
Guy Reams
