Years.

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I've been doing a lot of thinking about the idea of "a year" lately. I have a lot of anniversaries coming up -- nothing major, but soon it will have been a year since I met some of my current best friends, started playing drums...things like that. I've always mentally imbued time-related things with meaning and emotional weight. I get nervous and uptight around my birthday, wondering if I've accomplished enough with my year (same thing on New Year's).

Is there any point attaching meaning to events like birthdays and anniversaries? Our system of time/calendar is a construct, right? So do anniversaries/birthdays matter to you? Should they matter? What is a year? Who cares?

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:16 (twenty-one years ago)

our system of time and the calendar aren't constructs, they are based on the rotation of the earth around the sun, so I think even if we got rid of the calendar, we'd still inherently feel it.

― kyle (akmonday), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

This year for me marks the tenth anniversary of when i moved out on my own, by myself, to The Big City at age twenty. Honestly, it might as well have happened seven years ago or twelve years ago. The older I get, the more years don't mean a thang.

My fifteen year-old sister asked me the other day if I could believe that this year will be the third anniversary of September 11th. To me, it still feels like yesterday, but to her, it happened way back forever ago when, like, she was twelve and stuff.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I pay almost no attention to dates and very rarely 'take stock' as it were. I'm not sure this is good.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, true, but the start and end of the year is a construct, bien sur? Not birthdays and all, but New Year's. There's no defined start/end to a revolution around the sun I should think.

But still! What does a revolution around the sun mean to you?

xpost

Interesting. I think I'm finding that they mean more to me than when I was a teenager, but less than when I was a child.

― roxymuzak (roxymuzak), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Because of the peculiar accident of the Earth's axis being tilted in relation to the plane of its orbit, there is a procession of seasons that marks the course of a solar year. The reality of seasonal cycles makes the astronomical year almost as important as the more obvious astronomical cycle of a day.

The idea of counting years and observing anniversaries falls naturally out of the practical need to recognize where one is in relation to the procession of seasons. If the game you hunt migrates on a seasopnal basis, you damn well want to know it before the game disappears, so you can adjust your behavior accordingly. This leads, after a long while, to noticing the positions of stars in the night sky and eventually to calendars.

Once established, tha habit of observing yearly cycles can be generalized to other events that are signifigant, such as births, weddings and deaths - hence the obsevance of anniversaries of various sorts.

IOW, not every construct is arbitrary. Sometimes they grow out of situatuions that are naturally endowed with meaning - in the same way that hunger or death have a certain meaning to the persons involved.

― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 26 June 2004 18:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Very true, but that doesn't make it a good or productive thing to do so. Generalizing from one concept to another on that seems related can kind of be a risky thing (stereotyping). I've often thought that we might be better off if we didn't take note of anniversaries of events. Doing so seems to be a way of living in the past.

― mouse, Saturday, 26 June 2004 19:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Those who forget the past are bound to repeat it etc. Look both ways - like mom said.

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 26 June 2004 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Stop running with those scissors! Always wear clean underwear — what if you're in an accident?

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 26 June 2004 20:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I wish I could remember, more, when things happen(ed).

I didn't, really, realise it could matter.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:10 (twenty-one years ago)

It DOESN'T matter. Death will come and take us all.

― ..., Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:15 (twenty-one years ago)

lighten up.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:17 (twenty-one years ago)

no.

alright

― ..., Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

unresting death.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:21 (twenty-one years ago)

give it a rest.

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:22 (twenty-one years ago)

a whole day closer now!!!!

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Bring it on.

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:23 (twenty-one years ago)

commemorating the past != living in the past. should we not celebrate national independence days? it's a way of tying yourself and your life into the---please excuse the cheesy phrase--- fabric of time.

― oops (Oops), Sunday, 27 June 2004 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)

It's interesting that anniversaries cause you to question whether or not you've accomplished enough with your year. I don't think I've ever conceived of a year as a unit where a certain amount needs to be accomplished, but rather as something more fluid.

Maybe that's why I don't feel a huge sense of urgency to accomplish things on a larger scale in my life!?

Also, did/does anyone else concieve of time more by the school year than the calendar year?

― Laura E (laurae55), Sunday, 27 June 2004 05:43 (twenty-one years ago)

You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're older still

Time is marching on
And time is still marching on

This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's sooner still

― Trayce (trayce), Sunday, 27 June 2004 08:19 (twenty-one years ago)

But still! What does a revolution around the sun mean to you?

The overthowing of the Sun's decadent aristocracy, and the introduction of a new communist regime, for the Sun People and by the Sun People.

Also, did/does anyone else concieve of time more by the school year than the calendar year?

Oh yes, totally.

― Daniel_Rf (Daniel_Rf), Sunday, 27 June 2004 11:36 (twenty-one years ago)

eleven months pass...

i'm usually more sentimental about new years than birthdays. i think it's just the time of the year.. winters are usually the quieter months for me and so i end up sitting at home pondering. Especially the past couple of years when my life has been so up and down for two years running.

whereas my birthday falls almost in the middle of summer and so with everything going on there's not much time to take stock. most birthdays all i reflect upon is how much more/less drunk i was that day compared with the previous years (june 2000 is still the winner) and little else.

― ken c (ken c), Tuesday, 31 May 2005 08:50 (twenty-one years ago)

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