In 1578, a Jesuit priest, Matteo Ricci, arrived in China. He hoped to bring Christianity to the Chinese at a time when this ancient land was really just becoming brought into the European sphere of influence. Ricci brought some new technological devices that he hoped would open doors for him. Perhaps his most exciting present was a mechanical clock.
Unfortunately for Ricci and his friends, the Chinese weren’t interested in learning about Jesus Christ and threw the missionary in jail. After months of imprisonment by fearful Chinese leaders, he was brought before the Emperor Wan-li who was interested in the presents Ricci had brought. He had been told that one present was a mechanical device that had bells that ring at specific moments. Over the next nine years, Ricci used his “magic” mechanical clock to finally gain access to China with hopes of introducing them to Christianity. Instead, he reminded them of their own history.
While the Emperor was amazed by the clock, as were all of his people who saw it, he should not have been. The Chinese had invented the mechanical clock over 500 years before. Su Sung built what was known as the Heavenly Clockwork. His device was not something to merely tell time, but rather to create a calendar machine.
His “New Design for a Mechanized Armillary Sphere and Celestial Globe” are extremely detailed. Modern engineers have been able to follow these ancient directions and rebuild the machine. The clock was thirty feet high and was a five-story pagoda structure. At the top, the machine had a bronze power-driven armillary sphere where a huge globe hung. Along the outside, a series of bells and gongs were carefully placed and programmed to ring at specific hours. The actual working clockwork was driven by water flowing at into a turning wheel that maintained the time.
Su Sung wrote, “At sunset a jack wearing red appears to report, and then after two and a half ‘quarters’ there comes another in green to report darkness. The night-watches contain five subdivisions. A jack wearing red appears at the beginning of the night-watch, marking the first subdivision, while for the remaining four subdivisions the jacks are all in green. In this way there are twenty-five jacks for the five night-watches.”
Su Sung completed his construction in 1090 and for 4 years, kept the most perfect time known in the world. Unfortunately for Su Sung, and the Chinese in general, their culture was that with the arrival of a new Emperor or new dynasty, the old had most of its effects, especially any kind of “calendar” destroyed. For the Chinese at that time, a new Emperor meant the start of a new calendar. The Europeans were not much different as most local areas understood the current time as a certain year within the reign of the current monarch. However, for the Europeans, the Roman Catholic Church was able to provide a stability of time above that of the local leaders. So while some peasant may know the time as the “15th year of the reign of Duke Charles,” he also generally knew what the year was in relationship to the direction of the church (so, the year 1460).
With the arrival of Jesuit missionary Ricci, the Europeans were able to gain influence over the Chinese government through the use of a device that the Chinese had, sadly, forgotten that they basically invented. By the 1700s, China was completely under the thrall of European merchants and was on its way to being insignificant until the late 20th century.
For our purposes here of trying to Live Well, the point is that remembering is important. Perhaps the most important place is remembering what it is you are trying to accomplish in any given moment. Hate your current college class, bored so that you think about not attending or stopping the work? Remember the larger goal you are shooting for that demands this college degree. Think your boss is terrible or that you are under-appreciated at work to the point that you are thinking of simply not going back? Remember the larger goal for which you need money….even if your goal is to keep living in your house and enjoying whatever hobbies you may have….that takes money for which you need this job.
Forget and you may find yourself living under the thumb of some outsider who is ruling over you through knowledge that you once knew.