Closing out the month
It is time to close out the first month of this year. Already this year has had its up and downs. What more will this year bring us? Only time will tell the tale. One thing has not changed and will never change, and that is change. Every day is one filled with the changes in life itself. Each day we are older, we come closer to wisdom or folly.
We sit on the eve of a new month, the month of February. A month filled with birth, death, action, inaction, turmoil, strife, hope and love. A month set apart from every other month in the Gregorian calendar. This, of all months, is the only month able to change the number of days in it. A month with 28 days, yet on years divisible by 4, it changes to 29 days. It seems strange to me that a month should change from an even number to and odd number of days in years divisible by four (4), an even number.
Calendars are unique, yet daily we think little to nothing about them. Our lives are ruled by an invention which is imprecise and not uniform in nature. Throughout time, men of power and influence have played with calendars to make annual events work out as they wanted them.
The idea of a calendar dates back to the beginning of time as we know it. The bible says the world was made in 6 days and the 7th day was one of rest, hence we have a week. The 7 day week has been the standard for eons. But what about following longer periods of time? As the sun rises and sets every day, the only way to see a change was by the moon, hence the lunar month was born. With this cycle, 28 days became the norm. After some time a problem was seen, counting the months did not always lead to the same time of year neither for planting crops nor for the harvesting of them. Changes had to be made!
There have been dozens of calendars over time and covering the globe. Each culture seemed to have their own answer to the problem, with no uniformity outside their sphere of influence. Only after the church got involved did a semi standard arise. This standard is more or less used worldwide and called the Gregorian calendar.
The Gregorian calendar is a bastardization of the Julian calendar. That’s right; you guessed it, a roman calendar. From the name, you also may have guessed who it is named after. I have no plan to get into the detailed workings of any calendar, either past or present. The complexities of any calendar are far too confusing to be dealt with in a short paper, such as this. My only intent was to remind you of something ruling your lives that is flawed by nature, yet thought of as precise and sacrosanct.
Nothing invented by man is so precise that change or improvements cannot be made. Our understanding of time itself is imprecise, therefore flawed. This is not a new or revolutionary idea, but one simply to ponder.
Enjoy today, as it is the only one of its kind. The next maybe similar, but can never be the same.
Ed Williams
©
We sit on the eve of a new month, the month of February. A month filled with birth, death, action, inaction, turmoil, strife, hope and love. A month set apart from every other month in the Gregorian calendar. This, of all months, is the only month able to change the number of days in it. A month with 28 days, yet on years divisible by 4, it changes to 29 days. It seems strange to me that a month should change from an even number to and odd number of days in years divisible by four (4), an even number.
Calendars are unique, yet daily we think little to nothing about them. Our lives are ruled by an invention which is imprecise and not uniform in nature. Throughout time, men of power and influence have played with calendars to make annual events work out as they wanted them.
The idea of a calendar dates back to the beginning of time as we know it. The bible says the world was made in 6 days and the 7th day was one of rest, hence we have a week. The 7 day week has been the standard for eons. But what about following longer periods of time? As the sun rises and sets every day, the only way to see a change was by the moon, hence the lunar month was born. With this cycle, 28 days became the norm. After some time a problem was seen, counting the months did not always lead to the same time of year neither for planting crops nor for the harvesting of them. Changes had to be made!
There have been dozens of calendars over time and covering the globe. Each culture seemed to have their own answer to the problem, with no uniformity outside their sphere of influence. Only after the church got involved did a semi standard arise. This standard is more or less used worldwide and called the Gregorian calendar.
The Gregorian calendar is a bastardization of the Julian calendar. That’s right; you guessed it, a roman calendar. From the name, you also may have guessed who it is named after. I have no plan to get into the detailed workings of any calendar, either past or present. The complexities of any calendar are far too confusing to be dealt with in a short paper, such as this. My only intent was to remind you of something ruling your lives that is flawed by nature, yet thought of as precise and sacrosanct.
Nothing invented by man is so precise that change or improvements cannot be made. Our understanding of time itself is imprecise, therefore flawed. This is not a new or revolutionary idea, but one simply to ponder.
Enjoy today, as it is the only one of its kind. The next maybe similar, but can never be the same.
Ed Williams
©
posted by Ed | 15:21
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