Clockwork

Today, I have picked my word for the day out of a little book of children' s verse "about the everyday as well as the fantastical". It is by an author named Irene Rawnsley, and it is called The House of a Hundred Cats. I picked this little treasure up with Ben at my favourite hospice shop, the Sunflower Hospice. It's a truly lovely book and fills me with little ripples of glee when I spot it and take it from the shelf to treat myself to a truly silly little gem of a poem or illustration.

The word I stumbled upon in this little book of wonders is "clockwork". It's a word that brings up both positive and negative connotations for me - I entertain a truly ambiguous stance towards it.

On the one hand, I have always been a big fan of things working out perfectly - timed "like clockwork" and completely faultless. There is something exhilarating about completing a task or reaching a goal seamlessly and efficiently, as if it were set to run as smoothly as the clock on your wall. A few highlights of this past year at university have been executed so perfectly, so flawlessly that I can't help but to attach some positive meaning to this word when I think back on them. It leaves you feeling empowered, proud, and ready to take on ninja lions.


Clocks, however, are perfect because they are mechanised, and this is never the way I would like to live my life. It's going to be tough, every single day bringing new challenges and moments of pure bliss - you can be sure of this. Everything else is a gamble! I would never want my life or the life of anyone I love to be reduced to mechanised routine and jerky robot dancing... Oh, wait, that's not what clocks do. Plus, jerky robot dancing can be pretty fun!

One last thing I forgot to mention in my discussion of this word is the much-praised Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange. Personally, I couldn't sit through ten minutes of it due to my nervous and overly sensitive disposition - much to the disappoint of my fellow movie lovers and the few movie aficionados I have come across in my lifetime. Oh well!

...and with that, I must be off - my last exam beckons me to the books!