Time-measuring devices have been around for thousands of years. The fist known clock, the sundial, was handed down to us more than five thousand years ago. Other clocks soon followed – water clocks, pendulum clocks, quartz clocks, and nautical table clocks, among others – in varying designs to satisfy every taste.

And with the invention of clocks started the love-hate affair we have with them. We love them when anticipating pleasant events like birthdays and promotions and we hate them when we have to face unpleasant circumstances like death and firings. Not only do your nautical table clocks tell you the time, these also tell you exactly where you are in the world, down to the longitude and latitude. This can be inconvenient when you want to forget about time and when you want to be lost for a while.

But don’t fret. Even the ancient Greeks had their own love-hate affair with time, those people who sought to conquer time and achieve immortality with their philosophies and palaces, feasts and food, Olympics and odes. Scientists have discovered that the Antikythera Mechanism, regarded as the world’s first analog computer, had uses beyond predicting solar and lunar eclipses. It was also the basis for the conduct of the Olympiad, the ancient forerunner of the Olympics. This leads one to wonder if the Antikythera Mechanism is used for timing the Olympics today, would the Chinese be able to launch the Beijing Olympics on their propitious August 8 date.

The Greeks would have loved this clock if only for the thrills of seeing top athletes compete in boxing, discus, horseracing, javelin, jumping, pankration, pentathlon, running and wrestling. For those of you wondering what pankration is, it is not pancreas screaming damnation. It is a combination of boxing and wrestling where the only thing not allowed is biting and eye-gouging. Come to think of it, the sport can make your pancreas scream damnation! And that is when they hate the slow-moving clock hands that tell judges it is time to stop the match.

Despite our love-hate affair with clocks, it is still a pleasure to give and receive clocks as gifts. After all, one can never have too many clocks telling us it is time to do what we do best – be human beings with places to go, people to see, and things to do based on time.