Religion

A moment for time

I’ve been very busy lately.  As I drove home tonight, I thought to myself, I wish there were more hours in a day.  Well, why can’t there be more hours in a day?  If there were more hours in a day, wouldn’t time seem to slow down?  Dear Reader, you may think this random musing is an exercise in futility, but consider this.  Time is an artificial construct defined by by society.  For example, this is the month of February.  It has 28 days–fewer than any other month of the Julian calendar.  During Leap Year, February has 29 days.  Still, February is always two or three days shorter than the month of January.  So much of what we do is bound by time constraints that one could surmise that time passes by more quickly in February than it does in January.  Two months that are virtually identical in a calendar year differ in their length of time.  Deadlines in February–from mortgage payments to work assignments–must be met at least a couple days sooner this month than they did in January.  Certainly, work volumes vary from month to month, but given the same amount of work, February feels more hectic than a month like January because it is shorter.
 
I believe the same is true when subdividing time by hours, minutes, and seconds.  If you varied the rate at which they pass, time would seem to pass by faster or slower.  If your life is constraint by time, this can have profound impact on your life.  I recall reading about efforts during the Industrial Age to adopt digital, or metric time.  In the Nineteenth Century, the French introduced a decimal time system that replaced 86,400 standard seconds in a day with 100,000 seconds.  Here are the conversions from standard time to decimal time:
 
  • One decimal second is 86400/100000 = 0.864 standard seconds.
  • One decimal minute is 1440/1000 = 1.44 standard minutes, i.e. 1 minute 26.4 seconds.
  • One decimal hour is 24/10 = 2.4 standard hours.

    • A decimal day has 10 hours, and a decimal hour has 100 minutes.  Each decimal minute has 100 seconds.  If we all used decimal time, our day would only be 10 hours long.  Think of the implications!  You might sleep three hours on average (2.4 x 3 = 7.2 standard hours on average) and work for four hours (2.4 x 4 = 9.6 standard hours).  A standard four-hour work day (including lunchtime, of course) would translate into a 9.6 hour workday.  A five-day work week would be 48 hours (9.6 hours/day x 5 days) per week.  You would probably work more and sleep less.

    So what? you might ask.  It means that if we could redefine time to include more hours in a day–say 25, or better yet, 30–a day would not pass by so fast because there would be more time in a day.  Right now, I would love to have 25 hours a day.

    Something profound

    I have to prepare for a speech tomorrow and don’t have much time to write tonight. 
     
    With just a few moments to spare, I wondered whether I should write something profound. 
     
    I already wrote something profound.
     
    Those were the first words I wrote tonight. 
     
    Can you find them?
     
    Sometimes what is obvious isn’t always so obvious.
     
    Now, that’s profound.

    Overblown and overprepared

    We went to Seoulland today with some friends.  I’ll talk more about what happened there tomorrow.  For now, let me dwell on something interesting that happened–or rather, did not happen–today.  We left today fully prepared for heavy congestion and massive crowds at Seoulland.  After all, this is Sollal, or Korean New Year, and the entire nation of Korea is supposed to be out and about enjoying a much-needed holiday.  We all prepared for the worst.  Our friends considered taking the subway to avoid driving to Seoulland.  Finally convinced that driving was a better option, they packed extra food and a portable DVD player for the kids, just in case we were stuck in heavy traffic.  It was all for naught.  The roads were eerily quiet, and we arrived at Seoulland in just 20 minutes.   Granted, we drove on surface streets and avoided the interstate highway, which I assumed was more likely to be congested.  Seoulland was very quiet when we arrived at 10:30 this morning, although the crowds came later.  We left before the masses departed and avoided congestion on the way home.
     
    The experience reminded me of all those times I overprepared for something that did not materialize as planned.  Dear Reader, do you remember Y2K?  Did your company spend an inordinate amount of money and effort to upgrade their computer systems?  Did you wonder at midnight on December 31, 1999 whether the lights would go out and the world would shut down because of the overly hyped Y2K problem?  Did you buy candles or flashlights and keep them handy?  Did you stockpile canned goods?  Did you ever read "The Hot Zone" about the Ebola outbreak in monkeys in Reston, Virginia or watch the movie "Outbreak" and wonder whether a human strain of Ebola or another devastating airborne virus would hit the United States?  Do you wonder now whether avian flu will become a pandemic?  Preparing for the worst and taking precautions are very important, whether you’re driving in wintery conditions, safeguarding your home, or anticipating future risks such as the effects of Hurricane Katrina.  Nevertheless, sometimes non-events happen that are occasionally overhyped and leave you feeling foolish, duped, and/or extremely relieved.  It’s critical to discern when to play it safe and when to take calculated risks.  For example, I’m thankful we did not let any worries prevent us from traveling to the Middle East immediately following 9/11.  The trip was unforgettable.  Today felt like one of those days.  I’m glad we risked heavy Sollal traffic and massive Seoulland crowds despite any misgivings and had a great time. 
     
    Granted, this is also the 20th anniversary of the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, a tragedy that could have been prevented if NASA had heeded the advice of scientists who warned that the space shuttle’s O-rings were vulnerable to overheating.  In situations as critical as the launch of a shuttle into space, such concerns must be addressed.  A trip to Seoulland during Sollal is much less of a concern and worth the calculated risk.