Daylight Saving Time and Self interest broadly defined

By Bobby Neal Winters

The switch to Daylight Saving Time annoys me.  This used to be simply because I am a morning person and it takes away an hour of daylight from the morning. (That’s right: No daylight is saved; it’s just moved.) Then I had the realization that Standard Time was the true time: it’s set up so that the sun will be at its highest at noon, the way God and Gary Cooper meant it to be.

But an overwhelming reason to be annoyed hit me the other day.

We move to Daylight saving time when the days are getting longer anyway.  If we remained on Standard Time, we would still have enough time to do yard work in the evening during the summer.  However, the politicians “give us” an extra hour during the time of greatest change in order to take credit for it.  It looks like they are doing something for us, but they really aren’t.

It kind of sets your jaw on edge, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what bothers me more: The fact that they do it or the fact that we fall for it.

As Pogo observed, and as has often been repeated, we have met the enemy and he is us.

Let’s now turn from Pogo to Churchill to recall that he said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried from time to time...” The genius in the phrasing is not to say that democracy is good, but that it’s the least bad among a lot of bad alternatives.

We don’t like to be governed.  Not in general.

There are people who call themselves anarchists who advocate for no government and call it anarchy.  “Anarchy” is from the Greek, and if you break it down it means “no leader.” The thing is, if we made all governments disappear today, there wouldn’t be “no leader”; there would be lots of leaders and all leading in different directions, and those directions would be in conflict.

We had that situation once, back in the mists of time, and it brought us to where we are today.

We are a social, hierarchical animal.  We like to follow a strong, charismatic leader.

The trick is finding the right strong, charismatic leader.  How do you do it?

I don’t know.

Then what do we do next?

It starts by looking in the mirror and asking some questions. Am I as good a human being as I can be?  If the answer to that is no--and for most of us it likely is--then we need to ask another question: What do I need to do to change?

For most of us, we need to embrace the concept of “self-interest, broadly defined.”  We need to take care of ourselves as much as we can, but it can’t end there. However good you are at taking care of yourself, you don’t live alone in the world. There are times when you will need a little help, and there are times when those around you will need a little help.

So with self-interest broadly defined, take care of yourself; take care of your family; take care of your neighbor; take care of your neighbor’s family. Taking care goes out like ripples from a rock that hits the water: bigger in the middle be going out into circles of larger radius.

If there are enough people around us who do this, we’re strong; we’ve built a strong family; we’ve helped to build a strong community.

I believe we’ve built a strong community here in Pittsburg. We’ve got good people with good heads and good hearts.  I think the idea of self-interest, broadly defined, is broadly practiced.  We love our God; we love our neighbor; we take care of our families; we take care of ourselves.

We could do better, but we try to do better all the time.

And with the switch to Daylight Saving Time, there will be a little less light in the morning for us morning people to do it.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.