Let’s face the truth. Let’s accept facts. I believe there are only a few simple facts that really matter in life:
- Men and women are the creation of billions of years of evolution based on survival of the fittest.
- Life has sprung up randomly on this planet thanks to a coincidental mix of supportive environmental factors.
- Our planet floats in a cold vast glorious yet dangerous universe that has no regard for human life.
- But life can be beautiful, opportunity abounds, and karma is real.
- The world keeps turning, and no one is actually getting any younger.
I had a birthday recently. I turned exactly 38 years old. That is, I completed my 38th year of being alive. On my birthday, the earth was generally in the same relative position compared to the sun as the day I was born. That actually equates to 13,880 days. In fact everyone who reaches their 38th birthday will be 13,880 days old (plus or minus a day due to leap years). And then in a few months, I will have been alive for exactly 14,000 days. Everyone will reach their 14,000th day exactly 120 days after their 38th birthday. It’s kind of fun to count your age in days. I like to keep track of it in notebooks and journals when I start a new days’ notes or thoughts.
Why is 14,000 significant? Well it’s not really. Basically, it’s just a nice round number, and it’s more of a round number than 38. 14,000 is a nice round number when you’re using a base 10 counting system. We use base 10, aka the decimal system as the universal counting number system because as far as I can tell, we have 10 fingers. No other reason than that, that I’m aware of. The decimal system is accepted as the universal way to count because … it’s convenient.
14,000 days. Maybe I’ll throw another birthday party on this decimal system round number. But other numeral systems have other round numbers that may be worth celebrating. Apparently, the Babylonians used a base 60 number system roughly 5,000 years ago, and the Mayans and the Aztecs used a base 20 number system.
Celebrating every 365 days is relevant because we recognize the date we were born and then we add 1 to the running tally of how many times we’ve ridden the earth around the sun. On your birthday, the planet is generally in the same relative position to the sun as the same day you were born. This is sort of like how a race car passes over the starting line on the race track every time it drives around the track. Another analogy is the way kids attach a playing card to the spokes of their bicycle wheels, and the card flicks against the seat stay bar each time the tire spins around. Similarly, we mark our birthday and celebrate with a bang the day the earth passes the same spot in its orbit around the sun. Even another analogy is simply the hands on a clock.
In much the same regular fashion, the moon orbits the earth. Or perhaps more precisely, the moon orbits the sun in close proximity to the Earth, but the Earth’s gravity has harnessed the moon to continue orbiting the sun together for eternity. The moon’s orbit and the earth’s daily rotation results in 12 cycles per year where the Earth’s position between the sun and the moon produces a full moon for our observation here on earth.
Maybe the world needs to cut the crap and get back to basics. I think I do anyway. So that’s what I’m doing. The moon is the only reason there are 12 months in a year. As humans thought more and more about their surroundings over the previous millennia, we have dialed in the timing of all of this so well that we have machines everywhere (unless you’re in a casino) to remind you about the ticking of the clock. But only over the last 1000 years or so have we gotten really good at understanding the “calendar”. In fact, February 24, 1582 is the date the current calendar, the Gregorian calendar, was more or less mandated. It has been most profitably useful to the powers that be, as they were able to set a “schedule” that forced people to work five days and “rest” for two days.
By now people have used and abused the calendar, this human construct, so much that it is accepted as unquestionable truth that sprung out of nature. I’ll admit that a year (here on Earth) is ~365 days and there are 12 months. That is truth. But Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday were chosen as the names of the days by humans. Powerful humans. They needed to come up with seven names because the moon’s approximately 27-28 day revolution around the earth, and the gradual waxing and waning of the moon could be broken up into four phases of seven days each. The names of the months were simply decided upon as well.
The point(s) I’m trying to make is that decisions made by humans are not set in stone. These decisions, perhaps also thought of as “rules”, can be changed. Why work five days a week? Certainly with the pervasiveness of modern technology and the resulting lack of privacy, it seems everyone is working all the time. The weekend? There’s no rest there.
Another point I’m trying to make is that everyone has the same amount of time to work with. It’s one of the great equalizers in life. Taking this a step further, another point I’m trying to make is that time only moves forward (until some physicist or tech genius proves otherwise in a way that makes sense to this layman). SO no one is getting any younger, and the right time to act is RIGHT NOW.
Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, and Elon Musk all have the same amount of time (24 hours a day, 7 days per week, and 12 moons a year). That’s the same amount of time as everyone else. Filling your days with focused hard work will take you from where you are to where you want to be.
Are there other “unquestionable truths” that hold you back? The way things are supposed to be? Bad grades in school? A police record? Or simply the natural order of things? Perceived dangers? Maybe someone has fed you these “truths” and convinced you that they are unquestionable for a reason. Could it be that they need a controllable populace?
Avoid the distractions. Focus on whatever the few truths are that you hold dear. For me for some reason, the “inconstant moon” strikes me as a misnomer. The moon is actually very constant, predictably changing like clockwork thru eternity. When I’ve felt stressed by the pressure of a job or other stresses seeing a full moon has been a positive force reminding me of the truth that the world is naturally peaceful.
