I think the ubiquity of clocks in western societies points to the fact that time cannot be directly perceived. Our perceptions of time are both individual and circumstantial. For instance, time dilation slows the apparent passage of time during sudden trauma like a car crash.

Even in computation, where time is ideally measured very precisely, event based applications are extremely common, far more so than absolute or even exact relative time applications.

Time is computationally and culturally important because of the need to synchronize. But cross cultural synchronization of meetings is hard even at the basic level because prevailing attitudes of “On time” are different in, say, Germany, Spain, and China.

Richard Lewis has written about these cultural differences of time. Here’s a sample of some of his observations. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-different-cultures-under...