Jeff Bezos explains inspiring reason he has invested in a clock that will run for next 10,000 years

Everything is fast-paced in today's world. People jump from one thing to another without giving a thought to the long-term prospects. From cell phones to humans, no one can afford to be slow in their approach. This lifestyle might be the norm, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is healthy. In this hustle, people often lose focus on what truly matters. They fail to spend time with their families and foster meaningful relationships, which ultimately leads to a dissatisfactory experience. Seeing this, Jeff Bezos decided to invest in a creation that dissuaded people from this line of thinking. This creation is a giant clock whose objective is to become an icon of "long-term thinking," per IFL Science. It hopes to inspire people to push the boundaries of their thinking and look at the larger picture.

The giant clock will have a time duration of 10,000 years and will tick once a year. This innovative idea was first brought forth by Danny Hillis, who explained his ambitious intention in an essay for WIRED Magazine, "I want to build a clock that ticks once a year. The century hand advances once every 100 years, and the cuckoo comes out on the millennium…If I hurry, I should finish the clock in time to see the cuckoo come out for the first time." To move the plan forward, Hillis collaborated with Stewart Brand and established The Long Now Foundation. The foundation is a non-profit organization whose aim is to instill "long-term thinking" amongst individuals.

Finding the idea appealing, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, decided to invest $42 million, per Yahoo Finance. "Civilization is revving itself into a pathologically short attention span [...] Some sort of balancing corrective to the short-sightedness is needed," Brand wrote about the philosophy associated with the clock in a post. "Such a clock, if sufficiently impressive and well-engineered, would embody deep time for people. It should be charismatic to visit, interesting to think about, and famous enough to become iconic in the public discourse. Ideally, it would do for thinking about time what the photographs of Earth from space have done for thinking about the environment. Such icons reframe the way people think."

The clock will operate on Earth's thermal cycles. The construction is being done keeping in mind the aspect of endurance against natural forces such as temperature changes, humidity and dust. This focus also symbolizes the purpose of the clock, which is a long-term prospect. It is only by preparing for such factors the clock is expected to thrive over the millennia. The materials used in the clock include marine-grade stainless steel and high-tech ceramics. Also, it will be synchronized with the moon and sun to track the year, century and millennium.

The clock will be hundreds of feet tall and one of its kind, located on a mountain in West Texas. There will be plenty of vast dials placed within it, along with a chime generator. These parts were designed by ambient music wizard, Brian Eno, to ensure that individuals have a soothing experience in the giant clock's presence. It will also have parts like a solar synchronizer, a pendulum and gears. The clock's installation in Texas began in 2018. Even before that, the site was getting prepared to host the massive creation. Bezos came forward to give an update in 2012 that a 152-meter (500-foot) deep vertical shaft had been dug to make place for the equipment. No completion date has yet been announced.