Hi Saschia - This reminds me of Thoreau, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Wow, & that was in 1854, before the invention of almost anything ... that ties us to the clock.

I also learned that the 1st clocks in Europe in the 1300's were town clocks that only were accurate to the hour. Now, our requirements are so extreme that (are you ready for this?) the clocks on GPS satellites have to take into account that time runs slightly faster that high up due to General Relativity. (Gravity slows down time.)

If you work in a deep enough in a mine, will you live forever? Or maybe just get really big eyes.

You're correct, though. People do wait for some mysterious signal from a clock which doesn't even know they're there, to activate, when they could have done so at any time. Or at least on the hour.