A NEW YEAR, AND AN ACCOUNTING OF PASSING TIME

By Juan Montoya
The calendar says it will be 2017 come Sunday.
That, in turn, means that at least in January, we will have a Friday 13.

At the household, I used to have a running quiz with the my three kids regarding time, or its invention.
"Who invented time?," goes the question.
"The Sumerians," was the expected response.

The Sumerians, of course did not "invent" time. It has been there all along. However, they are generally credited with measuring it by giving the minute 60 seconds, the hours 60 minutes, etc.,
These people also invented writing, the wheel and the plow.
Other cultures around the world have been conscientious time watchers. The Mayas stand out as one of the most applied to measuring the skies and the movement of the stars and planets and ascribing properties to them that have turned out to be mostly fanciful and cloaked in religious mythology.

Their calendar goes back thousands of years more and calculates thousands of years ahead. We weren't  there to witness the beginning, nor will any of us be there to see it to the end, whenever that may be.
The Egyptians and other cultures didn't lag far behind. In the Americas, the Native Americans were also avid star gazers.

The Western world, while crediting the Muslims for their mathematical genius and inventiveness, nonetheless convinced the world that it should follow their religious traditions – often based on pagan holidays – and based its measurement of modern time as before and after the birth of Christ, the Nazarene prophet they believe is the Son of God.

It was Pope Gregory who personally altered the calendar and changed time to make the calendar "fit" in with the Easter celebration.
Time, then, is a relative concept which is used to measure everything from fossils to personal growth.

This much we know. Since man (and woman) began to keep a track of time, our good planet completes one revolution around the sun in one unit of a measure we call a year. We have synchronized the seasons to fit with the rhythm of our lives as the planet tilts and the weather changes relative to the direction the planet faces to our solar system star from the perspective of our particular hemisphere.

We measure our lives in years and this one – according to the mostly used method of measurement accepted by a majority of our societies – is coming to an end.

The upside is that a new one is just beginning and as we look back at the old unit, can resolve that the new unit of time approaching – if we are lucky to get it there – can be as good or as mediocre as we make it. To a large degree, it's up to each one of us.

Here's wishing you a Happy New Time Unit without the hangover of the last one.