close enough

  Each year is a new beginning. Well, at least we mark that new beginning with a calendar. It's been two thousand twenty-four years since the birth of Christ. The exact day/date is in debate but it's what has been decided upon, sort of. Jesus may have been born between 4 and 6 BC, not 1 AD. I know, how could Christ have been born before Christ? Well, that because the whole BC/AD thing was started by a monk that counted the years since the birth of Christ. At that time there was no such thing as zero and he used the wrong year to start counting. Recently however we have decided to use BCE and CE to mark the difference. The reason is BC/AD is a Christian thing and others are uncomfortable with that so saying before the common era (BCE) and the common era (CE) is supposed to be more inclusive. Even time offends people, or at least the measure of it. We didn't change the dividing line, just what we call the dividing line.   

 The truth is many cultures around the globe have a different calendar, a different measure of time than we generally use. All of that is based on beliefs or traditions. The movement of the sun or the moon or some other naturally occurring changes mark the time. No matter how much the climate changes the seasons will remain on the calendar. It's spring in Australia right now. They still celebrated Christmas and New Year though. I was born in July, that's when my year starts as far as I am concerned. That's when I celebrate my new year. I know the exact day/date and time. Just how long the rest of you have been here before me I can't say for sure or how long you will be here after me for that matter. I'm seventy years, five months and twelve days old. I won't reach another year for another 201 days.

  "The age of Earth is estimated to be 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 10 years ± 1%)." That according to Wikipedia. That would be a rather awkward number to put on the calendar. The very first calendar is believed to have been made 8000 years before Christ. That is of course assuming we know when Christ was born, which we don't so that calendar is off. Well, the best our scientists can offer leaves a plus or minus of 1% which when billions are involved is quite a significant margin of error. That doesn't stop our scientists from predicting what will happen in a hundred, two hundred or a thousand years from now. It's all close enough. That's the attitude we have to have, isn't it? It is what was decided upon. Close enough.

 The measure of time. A fascination of man since the earliest times. But why do we mark the passage of time when we know our time is limited. Why count how long we have been here? We don't know how much time we have. None of us do. If you believe in the science the earth was created by a big bang. Seems reasonable enough to say it could end the same way. The dinosaurs never saw that asteroid coming. Science says a giant asteroid slammed into the earth sixty-six million years ago, close to the Gulf of Mexico. That impact killed the dinosaurs. Today we are staring at the skies formulating a plan to divert any asteroids heading our way. We figure we can manage that alright and live on the earth for as long as we want unless we decide to leave. We just need to start using electric cars, eliminate cows farting and divert a few asteroids. No problem. Time marches on.

  I think the majority us believe in a life after this one. A life everlasting. I wonder will there be a calendar. Will we be concerned with how long we have been there, wherever there happens to be. I suppose we would be if we went to an unpleasant place. Perhaps that is why we mark the passage of time here; we want to go somewhere else. Well, we do but we don't. The unknown is always a bit scary. But we have promised ourselves that if we do this life the right way, we will go to a pleasant place afterwards. A place were all our friends, family and pets reside. We won't want to leave there! Perhaps time stands still. Do we sleep in heaven? 

  I don't think we, as humans, understand time at all. Einstein attempted to explain all that with his famous equation E=Mc2. I've read that many times and admit to still not really grasping what it is he is trying to say. I've read where this theory has been proven, to a high degree of accuracy. The atomic bomb is one thing that proves his theory according to psychists. Still, Einstein theorized that the universe had a beginning, the big bang as we call it. I don't see where you need to be a genius to come to that conclusion, everything we know has a beginning and an end. Well, except for when we end that is, unless we intervene in the natural order of things. Seems the best we can do is count. Time is the greatest mystery of all. "The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." (Albert Einstein) Yeah Al, time is relative. Measuring relativity is the challenge. Time has no physical properties to measure only an arbitrary unit designated by man, not a unit designated by the one who created it all. Same distance, different rulers.