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"Too much of a good thing can be positively exhilarating."
-- Mae West
Three years ago I was placed in this hospital for five days because I had a mild fever. At that time I found that I could occupy my time in a fruitful way by beginning to delve into the geometry of a clock on the wall directly opposite me. Once I was back home, I expanded the observations I made into a full fledged mathematical treatise complete with 13 theorems: this I called "Timely Encounter."
Now I was back. And I was yearning for another clock on which to test my mettle. And then I realized that I was once again in luck. For there on the wall straight ahead of me was an analog clock -- and a beautiful one at that. The numerals were black and elegant; and the dark red second hand was smoothly continuous rather than the sort which jerks from second to second.
Directly beneath the clock was a crucifix (I was in a Catholic hospital.) By a singular coincidence, my first full day there was Good Friday. (The Savior was still hanging there two days later: there were to be none of at least that kind of miracle at Carney Hospital that weekend.) I could not help but see the crucifix whenever I glanced up at the clock; but I gave it no more conscious thought beyond noting that it was every bit as elegant in detail as was the clock.
If in my previous stay I had begun to engage the clock with the trepidation of a neophyte, now I was returning with all the smug confidence of the conquering hero.
And so I sought my amusement by letting the clock become a continuously random dispenser of problems of the sort: "Given the time, what is the angle between the hands?" And conversely, "Given a certain angle, at what exact time will it happen?" Every time I looked up, there was at least one if not several new problems to be solved.
In my arrogance I flaunted my skills by insisting on solving each problem by two different methods, of which one was a solution from scratch while the other made use of rigorous formulas I had discovered. These I had to do relatively quickly, for the hands were always moving away from the time whose angle I was trying to determine. In other words, I was quite literally "on the clock", but it was more like "under the gun."
It was about two thirds of the way through my stay there at the hospital that I began to experience breathing problems.
They would most commonly begin when I had dozed off. I would waken with a start all short of breath and in a panic. My wife suggested some breathing exercises; but these didn't work.
When I told the doctors about this, they threatened to put me back on the ponderous bi-pap breathing machine that had kept me awake all night the last time I used it. They finally "compromised" by putting me on another breathing machine that proceeded to keep me awake all night.
It wasn't until I got near the end of my stay there that it hit me: it was most likely my interactions with the clock which were causing the breathing problems. Actually, it was not very difficult to diagnose: the continuous posing of ever new problems under rigorous time constraints (indeed, the nefarious timepiece was always right there in front of my face, its blood red hand inexorably moving forward) built up an unconscious anxiety which finally affected my very breathing itself.
I knew that the cure for this addiction was the same as for any other: I went cold turkey. Indeed, I had little choice: for I could not look at the clock again without feeling a slight wave of nausea creep over me. I knew it would take a while before I could use the clock again "merely" to tell time.
So I gazed at the crucifix instead. That at least was unchanging. And it would not do me any harm -- would it?
(30 April 2009)
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