I've always settled for the simple explanations that invoke some combination of farmers, energy savings, and a preference for daylight at the end rather than the start of the day. These explanations are all just fine but they don't exactly answer my question, mostly because they describe what's happened rather than what's happening. You would have the same problem if you described the small puddle of water on my counter as "formerly ice", or if nutrition labels tabulated from the seedling days.
My best effort to untangle this for myself goes something like this - a society decides, all at once, that everything will happen either an hour earlier or an hour later than it did yesterday. Lunch is brunch, Saturday Night Live starts on Sunday, and so on. This decision is made twice a year. Of course, as we all know from the last two years this society is about as capable of collective action as your dog is of understanding speech, so instead of working out the best way for everyone we all just follow orders and try to wake up on time. If this all sounds vaguely like what might happen under a dystopian regime, well, think what you want but I'm talking about my life.
Anyway, I find working out exactly what's going on the most helpful way to know what I think should happen next. What do I make of permanent DST? I'd have to think about it in terms of that hypothetical. If someone came up to me and said "hey, tomorrow everything you do is going to happen one hour later than planned", I'd have to think my response would almost surely make a mockery of the suggestion. I also think the same would happen in the reverse, where I learned that my life will happen one hour earlier. In the end, it just seems like a whole lot of effort to accomplish nothing of obvious value. There just isn't a good case to me that everyone should suddenly shift their entire life by one hour, whenever it is, and the fact that we do it by fiddling with the clocks doesn't really hide what's going on from my rolling eyes.
But if I'm going to rant on about the situation, I suppose I should also offer my opinion, so here it goes - I don't care, I really don't. My feelings about summer and winter don't have much overlap with the official sunrise and sunset, so I'll leave it to anyone with a strong feeling to decide for me. I prefer that we stop moving the clocks around so much, but whether we permanently settle on four o'clock, five o'clock, or purple o'clock just makes no difference to me. They say we get an hour back later this year but I feel like it's already been wasted thinking about this stupid topic. Honestly, I suggest we split the difference and move it thirty minutes this November, then never discuss it again. I certainly won't - I just don't have the time to offer any additional thoughts on the matter, my life already drowning as it does under the relentless tides of admin.
I will add, however, that I also include another group who need not offer any further thoughts on the matter - the Senate. What makes the Senate so qualified that they can tell me about half-past anything? A group of one hundred people earning $174,000 per year doesn't seem like any special qualification to me, and I don't think anyone was elected for their expertise in this area - I don't recall the Markey campaign talking about his sense of time, though he does enjoy a stroll through Malden. In fact, I want to know - what is the Senate doing with their time? We still have a few problems I'm aware of - the historic pandemic rages on, Russia seems hell-bent on starting World War III, we have enough inflation that the Fed stopped printing (so much) money, and gas prices are so high that for once people who drive hate driving more than me. Is there any time to mention the climate, racial justice, or poverty? You'd think there wasn't time to talk about time, but the Senate somehow made time. I'm not perfectly clear what these people were elected to do, but based on what I can see they've done a nice job setting up the circus tents, and I assume my bread is in the mail.
