It seems like everybody is pretty busy nowadays. Like many of the last few blogs on my dashboard seem to include some form or variation of "I'm sorry for not blogging lately I promise to write more soon!"
Well, I suppose that means that people have stuff going on irl, meaning they have a life to live and stuff to do. Which might not always be a bad thing.
Until it gets way to hectic. And there's too much stuff going on. But I might as well post this anyways, even though some people probably won't bother reading a whole frikin essay. 'Cause if I don't post something, I'd be among those apologizing for not posting as well. :)
After all, there's only 24 hours to a day; how much can you squeeze into 24 hours before everything spirals out of control?
--------------------
Every morning the sun rises to the early morning sky, the pale orange tinting the early dawn horizon. Time moves on, straight, determined, forward.
At times like these, you may look back down the road. A road some call "Memory Lane." A road you see as the most beautiful street in the world. Perhaps not the richest road, perhaps not the cleanest, perhaps not the best maintained, perhaps overgrown with weeds, perhaps covered with bumps and potholes, perhaps not even paved. But still beautiful nonetheless. Beautiful simply because it is your road. It's the road where time has taken you, where time as molded and built you, a road where you picked up everything you have along the way, a road where you have gained and lost so much. You tally it all up, and see how far you traveled.
Yet nostalgia still leaves nothing for you; time does not pity anybody; it drives on forward, each second ticking by, never to return. You look up, and suddenly realize the morning sky has given way to the powerful yellow sun beating past the bright blue sky.
You find yourself standing somewhere. In the middle of something. Called life. Today and now. It's here you play the cards out, going through your hectic life. School, homework, chores. Family and friends. Things to do, things to work on, things to play, things to write, things to share.
By the time you look up again, it's already dark, the sun is gone, and stars are twinkling, spanning horizon to horizon. After two thousand years, Canis is still loyally following Orion on his trek across the night sky. The Gemini twins still stand faithfully together. Cepheus is still sitting on his throne, guarding over the night sky.
What is a nanosecond in the span of two thousand years?
Sitting under the stars, you start to think and realize. Where has the time gone? What has happened over the past few days? What have I done over the past few weeks? What have I accomplished over the past few months? Where has the past few years brought me?
You may start to realize. Tomorrow will bring its own journey. A bridge to cross, a path to trek, a mountain to conquer, a canyon to overcome. It may be a peaceful river flowing from the sprays of a vernal fall. It may be an ominously churning ocean covered by dark menacing thunderclouds. It may be a thick, lush rainforest teeming with life. It may be a barren desert void of all but a deep orange sun. Whatever it may be, there is beauty in the world. If you can't see it, you're not looking.
--------------------
If you could go back in time, what would you change? If you could go forward in time, what would you see?
Now, if you realize that you cannot do either, what would you do?
Live and learn. Learn from the past, live the present, for your future.
You can't change the past, and you can't write the future. But you can grasp the moment, now, here, today, to live your life and build who you now are for the person you envision yourself to become, somewhere down in that line of time. Seize the day, keep looking forward, keep pressing onward. And with that, reach for the fruit on the limbs of the tree.
Onward, forward, and never forget what you can do.
Carpe Diem
Well, I suppose that means that people have stuff going on irl, meaning they have a life to live and stuff to do. Which might not always be a bad thing.
Until it gets way to hectic. And there's too much stuff going on. But I might as well post this anyways, even though some people probably won't bother reading a whole frikin essay. 'Cause if I don't post something, I'd be among those apologizing for not posting as well. :)
After all, there's only 24 hours to a day; how much can you squeeze into 24 hours before everything spirals out of control? --------------------
I remember this interesting news article from a while back, from New Years Eve, 2008, actually, which was titled "Hold On a Second, 2009." Basically, it called for a leap second, adding an extra second to the clock to account for the Earth slowing down.
Heh, that's not exactly relief time, but that gives us an extra second to each day. Um, yeah. Thanks. That helps. No really, it does. The Earth getting old and tired and slowing down helps us. Really. Even though the Earth is too busy and tired trying to support all of us.
One interesting thing about the article though, is that it said that leap seconds can't be predicted; they are added as needed. One question stands out in my head though: with all this advanced science and technology, scientists can't forecast these leap seconds, but they can measure that this six-sextillion pound of rock is slowing down by one second? Really?
Going further into this article, it suggested the idea that Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, might be growing out of date now. Some developed countries are considering switching to International Atomic Time, or IAT, based in France instead of in England. The IAT system boasts that it can keep time with nanosecond accuracy (to the billionth of a second), so accurate that in 1,000 years, noon would occur at about one in the afternoon.
Wait, what?
This is accuracy? Really?
Haha, so suddenly the Earth itself isn't reliable enough to use as a standard to calibrate time with. The Earth isn't constant, it slows down. Oops.
Do you know what the SI definition of a second is? Go ahead, sit down, grab a glass of water, and take this in. Defined in 1967 by the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures, one second of time is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."
I remember this interesting news article from a while back, from New Years Eve, 2008, actually, which was titled "Hold On a Second, 2009." Basically, it called for a leap second, adding an extra second to the clock to account for the Earth slowing down.
Heh, that's not exactly relief time, but that gives us an extra second to each day. Um, yeah. Thanks. That helps. No really, it does. The Earth getting old and tired and slowing down helps us. Really. Even though the Earth is too busy and tired trying to support all of us.
One interesting thing about the article though, is that it said that leap seconds can't be predicted; they are added as needed. One question stands out in my head though: with all this advanced science and technology, scientists can't forecast these leap seconds, but they can measure that this six-sextillion pound of rock is slowing down by one second? Really?
Going further into this article, it suggested the idea that Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT, might be growing out of date now. Some developed countries are considering switching to International Atomic Time, or IAT, based in France instead of in England. The IAT system boasts that it can keep time with nanosecond accuracy (to the billionth of a second), so accurate that in 1,000 years, noon would occur at about one in the afternoon.
Wait, what?
This is accuracy? Really?
Haha, so suddenly the Earth itself isn't reliable enough to use as a standard to calibrate time with. The Earth isn't constant, it slows down. Oops.
Do you know what the SI definition of a second is? Go ahead, sit down, grab a glass of water, and take this in. Defined in 1967 by the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures, one second of time is "the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom."
Mm hmm. This, using a caesium atom, is where the term "atomic time" comes from.
Later, they found that that wasn't accurate enough. Amendments had to be added that the definition refers to the caesium atom as being at absolute zero, with no electric or magnetic fields, not be in motion, and corrected for gravitational time dilation.
So now they calibrate time with a caesium atom. Wow. Scientists get paid good money to trifle with trivial stuff sometimes.
Lemme go back a few hundred years, back to when the mechanical timepiece was created, sundial or clock or hourglass or waterw
heel or whatever. Since people work in the day and sleep in the night, and since for the majority of human history, artificial lighting was not common, a timepiece based on the sun seems pretty logical. Makes sense. So how do we divide up the time in a day?
Lets go further back. To list a few examples, the Egyptians, with the then-common duodecimal (base-12) numbering system, had the day divided into two twelve-hour divisions by 2000BC.
Ancient Greeks and Romans defined an hour as 1/12th the time between sunrise and sunset, so for them, one day hour in the summer is longer than one day hour in the winter, and vice versa. Zero hour was at sunrise, sixth hour at noon, and twelfth hour at sunset, letting them know exactly how much time they had to work with before the sun set and the light disappeared.
The Babylonians, with their sexagesimic (base-60) mathematics, divided the year using 1/60th parts, with now obsolete and unfamiliar units down to three and a third SI seconds.
(Just if you're curious, the numbering system most of the world uses today is known as the decimal (base-10) system.)
But the modern second, as a unit, could not be accurately measured until the invention of the pendulum clock in the late 1600s.
Nanosecond accuracy could not be measured until not that long ago.
Yet, somehow, humans have lived just fine for centuries without nanosecond accuracy. Scientists calibrate time to stuff happening in a caesium atom, but for all I care, time can be calibrated to the eruption of Old Faithful. If people have a system to wake up and go to school or work on time, to set up schedules and coordinate plans, and know what a reasonable bedtime is, then that is good enough. Would being two nanoseconds off hurt anybody?
--------------------
Time is supposed to be special. People come up with a bunch of witty sayings about time.
"The days are long, but the years are short."
Time is relative, pushing everything along. We live our lives in it, we live our lives for it, we live our lives according to it, we live our lives unable to comprehend a dimension without it.
"Life's short."
In one way, yes, life is short enough that there has got to be better things to do than measure the speed of a rock moving at 66,000 mph through space. In another, it's not so short that we need nanoseconds to measure it.
"For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the
eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."
Exactly! Where does it all go? Time, it flies. People talk about killing time, while in the background, time is slowly killing them.
"The flower you hold in your hands was born today
and already it is as old as you are."
Doesn't this drive the point home. Life's short. Time passes, ticking along, ticking away, never to return. To everything there is a season...a time to be born, a time to die.
There are 365 days in a year. Okay, 366 sometimes, because of irregularities with our calendar or with our clock or with our planet, or wherever you want to lay the blame. Of that 365.25, we spend maybe 180 in school. For older people, a full time job takes maybe 260 days of the year.
Later, they found that that wasn't accurate enough. Amendments had to be added that the definition refers to the caesium atom as being at absolute zero, with no electric or magnetic fields, not be in motion, and corrected for gravitational time dilation.
So now they calibrate time with a caesium atom. Wow. Scientists get paid good money to trifle with trivial stuff sometimes.
Lemme go back a few hundred years, back to when the mechanical timepiece was created, sundial or clock or hourglass or waterw
heel or whatever. Since people work in the day and sleep in the night, and since for the majority of human history, artificial lighting was not common, a timepiece based on the sun seems pretty logical. Makes sense. So how do we divide up the time in a day?Lets go further back. To list a few examples, the Egyptians, with the then-common duodecimal (base-12) numbering system, had the day divided into two twelve-hour divisions by 2000BC.
Ancient Greeks and Romans defined an hour as 1/12th the time between sunrise and sunset, so for them, one day hour in the summer is longer than one day hour in the winter, and vice versa. Zero hour was at sunrise, sixth hour at noon, and twelfth hour at sunset, letting them know exactly how much time they had to work with before the sun set and the light disappeared.
The Babylonians, with their sexagesimic (base-60) mathematics, divided the year using 1/60th parts, with now obsolete and unfamiliar units down to three and a third SI seconds.
(Just if you're curious, the numbering system most of the world uses today is known as the decimal (base-10) system.)
But the modern second, as a unit, could not be accurately measured until the invention of the pendulum clock in the late 1600s.
Nanosecond accuracy could not be measured until not that long ago.
Yet, somehow, humans have lived just fine for centuries without nanosecond accuracy. Scientists calibrate time to stuff happening in a caesium atom, but for all I care, time can be calibrated to the eruption of Old Faithful. If people have a system to wake up and go to school or work on time, to set up schedules and coordinate plans, and know what a reasonable bedtime is, then that is good enough. Would being two nanoseconds off hurt anybody?
--------------------
Time is supposed to be special. People come up with a bunch of witty sayings about time.
"The days are long, but the years are short."
Time is relative, pushing everything along. We live our lives in it, we live our lives for it, we live our lives according to it, we live our lives unable to comprehend a dimension without it.
"Life's short."
In one way, yes, life is short enough that there has got to be better things to do than measure the speed of a rock moving at 66,000 mph through space. In another, it's not so short that we need nanoseconds to measure it.
"For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the
eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work."
Exactly! Where does it all go? Time, it flies. People talk about killing time, while in the background, time is slowly killing them.
"The flower you hold in your hands was born today
and already it is as old as you are."
Doesn't this drive the point home. Life's short. Time passes, ticking along, ticking away, never to return. To everything there is a season...a time to be born, a time to die.
There are 365 days in a year. Okay, 366 sometimes, because of irregularities with our calendar or with our clock or with our planet, or wherever you want to lay the blame. Of that 365.25, we spend maybe 180 in school. For older people, a full time job takes maybe 260 days of the year.
--------------------
Every morning the sun rises to the early morning sky, the pale orange tinting the early dawn horizon. Time moves on, straight, determined, forward.
At times like these, you may look back down the road. A road some call "Memory Lane." A road you see as the most beautiful street in the world. Perhaps not the richest road, perhaps not the cleanest, perhaps not the best maintained, perhaps overgrown with weeds, perhaps covered with bumps and potholes, perhaps not even paved. But still beautiful nonetheless. Beautiful simply because it is your road. It's the road where time has taken you, where time as molded and built you, a road where you picked up everything you have along the way, a road where you have gained and lost so much. You tally it all up, and see how far you traveled.
Yet nostalgia still leaves nothing for you; time does not pity anybody; it drives on forward, each second ticking by, never to return. You look up, and suddenly realize the morning sky has given way to the powerful yellow sun beating past the bright blue sky.
You find yourself standing somewhere. In the middle of something. Called life. Today and now. It's here you play the cards out, going through your hectic life. School, homework, chores. Family and friends. Things to do, things to work on, things to play, things to write, things to share.
By the time you look up again, it's already dark, the sun is gone, and stars are twinkling, spanning horizon to horizon. After two thousand years, Canis is still loyally following Orion on his trek across the night sky. The Gemini twins still stand faithfully together. Cepheus is still sitting on his throne, guarding over the night sky.
What is a nanosecond in the span of two thousand years?
Sitting under the stars, you start to think and realize. Where has the time gone? What has happened over the past few days? What have I done over the past few weeks? What have I accomplished over the past few months? Where has the past few years brought me?
You may start to realize. Tomorrow will bring its own journey. A bridge to cross, a path to trek, a mountain to conquer, a canyon to overcome. It may be a peaceful river flowing from the sprays of a vernal fall. It may be an ominously churning ocean covered by dark menacing thunderclouds. It may be a thick, lush rainforest teeming with life. It may be a barren desert void of all but a deep orange sun. Whatever it may be, there is beauty in the world. If you can't see it, you're not looking.
--------------------
If you could go back in time, what would you change? If you could go forward in time, what would you see?
Now, if you realize that you cannot do either, what would you do?
Live and learn. Learn from the past, live the present, for your future.
You can't change the past, and you can't write the future. But you can grasp the moment, now, here, today, to live your life and build who you now are for the person you envision yourself to become, somewhere down in that line of time. Seize the day, keep looking forward, keep pressing onward. And with that, reach for the fruit on the limbs of the tree.
Onward, forward, and never forget what you can do.
Carpe Diem
