Note: This blog post contains the F word. Close the page now if you’re a dumbass who’s offended by the existence of certain words.
Here we go again. We’re wrapping up another year and heading into a fresh one. In reality, the date means nothing — it’s a completely arbitrary point in an annual orbit around the sun. One day flows into the next in the planet’s endless rotation as it hurtles around the solar system at 30 kilometers per second on gravity’s tether.
But human beings need to break time down into easily-comprehended compartments. 20th century, 21st century. Nineties, two-thousands. 2016, 2017. December, January. Gen-X, Millennials. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Morning, afternoon, oh crap, I missed an important one o’clock meeting.
Each unit is assigned an identity and set of characteristics that our monkey brains can understand, like mapping out the geography of time with fleeting landmarks. It’s not real, but at least we can understand it. Or we think we do.
