No Turning Back the Clock

Does your watch inspire you?

I’ve often written that the most important function of a wristwatch—for me— is to collect memories of adventures. I love the idea of sitting through a boring Monday meeting, where a glance at the calm sweep of your dive watch’s seconds hand reminds you of the shipwreck you dove a few days earlier. It’s a secret moment that belongs only to you. It’s impossible to convey to “nonbelievers” the satisfaction one can get from wearing a watch on a mountain peak or deep wreck—places of wonder and potential peril—to the most mundane places like the grocery store, the office, or the sofa. The right watch, usually a dive watch, never has to leave your wrist. Besides maybe a wedding ring, there’s not much else that can so versatilely go anywhere, and a wristwatch remains utterly functional in all environments, at the very least marking the time, on up to tracking a crucial decompression stop or turnaround time on a mountain climb. These experiences can bond us, inextricably, with this otherwise cold, mechanical object.

But there’s a second part of the equation: the best watches also inspire future adventures. It’s all well and good to look back and bask in the warm glow of past exploits. We can pat ourselves on the back for our achievements and our watches can remind us of them, but in reality, your wristwatch doesn’t care about the past. Its function is to march forward, to indifferently tell the time that is constantly, relentlessly, ticking away one second after another. There literally is no turning back the clock.