Underlying idea of whole metric and SI system is the real start point. You want to define some units that you can easily replicate. Time is reasonable enough one, measure and track length of day and then length of second. Now based on this figure out way to come up with replicable definition for distance, pendulum is good enough gravity is constant enough. Thus linking gravity and meter arises.

From here you can define lot of other units like mass and Volt and Ampere... Everything comes from second which is weird, but does make lot of sense.