Cat's Eye

So yesterday checked with my 4 year kid after picking her up from her daycare, whether Daddy picked her early or late. For the past few days, her answer has been alternating between "You picked me late today" and "You picked me early today". 

I was trying to gauge what my kid considers the right time for pickup and I was also curious to know how she decides that, since she obviously does n't know how to check the time at any given point. 

Her answer is simple - all my best friends are still in daycare except for one who left just before me. So you came early today. If we interpret this answer deeply, we could correlate that the kid is able to visualize the time by these simple observations.

I was always amazed by the fact several centuries ago - when we did not have "clock" or "watches", how our ancestors did their regular transactions on time every time. Read somewhere that during the medieval period of Japan, people used to tell time by looking at a cat's eye.

Though it could be argued either way, we still need to realize that animals also need a way to sense the time of the day and do their activities accordingly. Evidence suggests that different species do indeed experience passing time on different scales - their body mass and metabolic rate determine how they perceive time.

All of these point us to one thing. Though we are tempted to think the way we normally approach a problem could be the only way to do things - in reality there are several other proven solutions successfully practiced by lots of different people at different points of time. 

Having an open mind to observe, listen, learn from these existing approaches/solutions could give us an entirely new perspective to our thinking process.