Tick Tock

This is random, and I'd apologize, but you could just click out.

I was thinking about translations today.

A huge part of the world measures distance with a decimal system. The English system still strives on, mostly due to tradition. We use it, we're used to it, it works for us. We're proud, so we don't give it. I'm fairly certain that the only way the English system of measurement will die is if all nations that use it were to be conquered by other people who use the metric system. Conquer seems to have lost popularity in the modern world, so...long live the English system.

Languages seem to have been the least successful in this manner. I suppose language evolves a bit faster than, say, distance, but there are still a crazy amount of languages out there. While we have standard systems of measurement that everyone (besides us whackos) are expected to use, we insist on translating our thoughts and words into all of these systems of communication. We have different languages, different alphabets, and different systems of writing altogether.

But when it comes to time, everyone seems to use the standard. We may argue about which day want to celebrate the near year, but the world seems to use one calendar. Sun dials from Babylon made their way to modern atomic clocks keeping their perfect time...twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. There have been corrections and modifications (not to mention language changes), but the overall idea and way of doing it is still around.

So...when we want to tell the people we work with our plans, we don't have to translate our calendar. We might need to put the rest into Spanish, though. Interesting, the lines we draw.

Four seasons--it's an obvious cycle, and not a simple construct of man. Barring remainders, we have about 12 full moons during that cycle. Twelve is unfortunate, it's really hard to turn that into decimal, but fine--it's still not a man-made phenomenon. Decimalizing the day would be easier. We could have 10 hour days with 100 centihours each to replace minutes, and further subdivide to milihours and so on. This is all man-made, simply a continuance of the babylonian belief that 12 was a special number--something strengthened by the 12 full moons a year, sure.

As a Nobilis player and GM, I have to admit that Time has got to be one of the strongest concepts we have as humans. We all think of time in the same terms. With the exception of people we consider mentally inferior, we mostly experience time in the same way. Sometimes it goes faster to our perceptions, and sometimes it drags on, but it mostly goes at the same rate, and always goes forward.

Except in dreams.

Except in Deja vu.

Except in...

~j