13 Months

For those who do not know this yet, I am a math geek.

I love observing how our world uses mathematics in our daily lives and in our global society. It’s deeply and profoundly fascinating to me.

The basics of math are shapes and numbers.

In high school, we would call this separation Geometry and Algebra.

Both are math. Both are real(-ish). Both need to be connected to each other to have any logical meaning.

Shapes and forms are something we can observe with our senses. Geometry is actually quite objective and accessible to pretty much everyone. We don’t usually argue if a circle is a circle or a square. It’s pretty obvious.

This might surprise you, but numbers are a bit different. Numbers is an invented concept mainly in men’s mind. Numbers are actually a highly subjective concept.

What kinds of numbers we associate to shapes is a choice our society made at some point. It’s a system we have created to talk about shapes and to ‘play’ with forms in various formulas in a more simplified and elegant manner. That’s it.

It’s taking less place to write a distance in a number for example, that draw a map with geometric shapes to show the distance visually. It’s a question of convenience.

But, in its origins, numbers are like an alphabet. It’s just symbols that mean something to someone. Or they don't mean the same thing. The symbol ‘P’ means two completely different sounds in English and in Ukrainian, for example.

The sound is not subjective, it’s a frequency, when I say it, we all hear the same vibration, but the symbol we use to describe the sound is very much subjective to many people.

So, yes, we could also say that it’s a same thing with numbers. And in some way, we could argue what 0, 1, 10, 12, 13, 1111 or any other number actually means.

It’s just symbols to describe something to simplify our communication and transmission of knowledge in a written form. Numbers are not objective and true as many of us could believe.

Numbers or Algebra was actually created way further in history that the common understanding of shapes, forms, patterns and Geometry.

Algebra was reserved to those who were lucky enough to go to school to learn it. And to those who were willing to learn the language of numbers that our society has invented and established as a norm at that particular time and place.

Today numbers are internationally approved and a globally shared system. And not many would argue on the meaning of numbers today. Algebra has become pretty much common language everywhere. That is also why our computers and IT have been built on numbers. Because it’s the shortest, simplest and the most approved system in the world right now to describe reality.

Not many understand how it works and what kinds of shapes and forms are related to the numbers in our technological and virtual reality today, but we trust the numbers language… So, who cares.

We don’t know and we cannot see the Geometry behind the Algebra that the artificial intelligence uses today. And we don’t even know if it is still coherent or just or even true for us as humans.

Our God today is not shape-based, he is numbers-based.

But we don’t care, because we trust the language of numbers we have invented until now.

Until now, it makes sense.

Or almost.

The small problem is: Everything that was invented by our mind is tangible, subjective and only an approximation of reality. It’s not the Reality herself.

In themselves, numbers literary mean nothing! It’s all about the connected meaning to them, the form, the sensed reality you associate to the numbers in your head and in your belief system.

This is why symbols, languages and numbers can also be used to manipulate people and play with your mind in your head and even control our collective belief system.

And they are used this way. Everywhere. We are all manipulated by numbers in our world today. And we also all manipulate others with numbers.

Numbers are very powerful in our world today. We all know this.

In order to really see the distortion in our society between the observed reality and numbers-based reality, we need to deeply understand the link between both systems. Between Geometry and Algebra. Between Observed and Experienced reality and a reality created in our collective head with numbers, statistics, economics, symbols, projections, excel data sheets, etc.

But who is making those links today?

And who was making those kinds of links and connections in the past?

How have the number systems emerged and how it was established as a social norm and common language?

Based on what exactly?

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Besides being math geek, I am also a bit too much interested in the history of this world.

And exploring the spaces where history and mathematics interact is a special kind of pleasure for me.

When we see more clearly when, how and why certain social norms and languages were established, we understand way better the origins of our experienced and deeply fucked reality today. And when we understand the origins, we can way better address the distortions in our system and create new social norms that makes more sense and that are more coherent with our collectively desired, observed and sensed reality.

I do strongly believe that sometimes in order to make sense of what is happening today and to create a meaningful systemic change, before we actually need to dig a bit to clearly see the seeds, the soil and the roots of where, how, why and by whom it was created this way.

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There are so many ways to enter this conversation. There are so much of truly fascinating interwoven history moments between numbers, politics, religion, science, war, economy, technology and even climate change or the entire topic of sustainability in this world today.

So much to reflect upon, so much to understand. So much to digest. So much to see, to feel, to laugh and to cry about.

One step at a time.

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The way I would like to enter this conversation today is mainly based on my personal ongoing exploration of Cycles and Rhythms.

Like I said before, the Geometry is actually the mother (or father, whatever suit you best) to Algebra.

The origin of numbers is actually coming from the concept of proportions. And to truly understand how proportions work we need to understand not only shapes and forms, but also the movement of shape-based systems in the space-time. We need to see the patterns.

Which basically means Cycles and Rhythms properties and qualities of Geometry.

Geometry is a Living Science, and it behaves in Cycles and Rhythms.

It’s a coherent dance, not a chaotic randomly generated number with no identifiable pattern or purpose.

This is why I strongly believe that as humanity we really need to understand the cyclical nature of our reality. Time or reality is not linear, neither it is circular.

Time is spiral. Both linear and cyclical.

We understand quite well the linear aspect of time, but very few think about the circularity of time.

If we want to be smart and efficient about Time in general, our consciousness needs to appropriately integrate both cyclical and linear aspects of time. It’s only when we understand both that we can truly master the spiral dynamics of Time, the mechanics of real Reality and even better comprehend the Science behind the Life and the Nature herself.

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This morning I saw this randomly interesting post on social media.

A man was innocently asking, ‘why don’t we have 13 months in a year with 28 days each?’

Aha, what an interesting question. For me this was like a sweet candy to contemplate this morning. It seems silly, but in reality, this question makes so much sense to me. I have actually asked myself this question so many times, but I have not taken enough time to dig a bit deeper and understand the real answer to the why.

Well, until this morning.

Now I do and it’s fascinating what I have found so far. Before I continue, here is an interesting quote from an article I recommend if you want to go deeper on this topic.

In a scalding-hot argument against the 12-month calendar, a September 1927 issue of The Outlook proclaimed:

‘A month is a wholly irrational division of time. It has no relation to anything in astronomy, or human experience. It is an inaccurate and varying measure of time that is a constant annoyance in business and a misleading unit in science. It has no religious significance. A month is nothing but just a bad habit.’

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If you just consider an alternative reality where our commonly accepted calendar is like that, with 13 months of 28 days each, what would it look like? What would be the advantages of this? Or disadvantages?

Well, first of all, it would be way more coherent with the actual observed reality.

Most of the time measures of Time are related to the movements of celestial bodies.

A day is a rotation of Earth on herself. A year is the rotation of Earth around the Sun. Following that logic, a month could be a rotation of the Moon around the Earth.

But it’s not. Well, not exactly. At least today it’s not. It was like that for most ancient civilizations, but it has changed since then. It has changed because of the meaning we create around numbers in our minds, in universities and in our society in general.

If it was related more accurately to the Moon, we would indeed have a calendar which is way closer to a concept of 13 months of 28 days each. Because the Moon turns around the Earth 13 times in one year and one rotation of the moon orbit takes 27 days, 7 hours and 43 minutes. Much closer to 28, that to 30 or 31 as it is in our calendars today.

Besides the actual geometric coherence of Time with all things, we can actually observe with our eyes like Sun and Moon, there are other advantages that we could think about.

It’s actually about simplicity.

In that alternative reality of 13 months year, every month would have exactly 4 weeks. Every month would start on the exact same day of the week.

Mathematically speaking it would be an orgasmic symmetry to represent both aspects of linearity and circularity of time under this scheme.

Here is an example of a calendar of what it could like. I was definitely not the only one to ask myself such a silly question finally.

Ref: https://www.unz.com/print/Outlook-1927sep28-00109. (super interesting document!)

Looking at those images, the engineer/mathematician in me is literally in Heavens with this kind of logic and construct around Time.

Seriously, just imagine a reality where we would function with this kind of calendar.

Wouldn’t it be easier to plan, to count, to measure, to compare and even to understand time-based reality?

Plus, since (normally) our hormonal cycle is tuned on the Moon cycle, this would be so easier to use as a calendar for literally every woman in this world.

And every man trying to plan how to approach, to talk, to empower women in a particular period of time and precisely know when to shut up and take care of women around them.

This is also why the contraceptive pill is also counted for a cycle of 28 days. Not 30 or 31. Because, usually menstrual cycle of a woman is aligned with the movement of the Moon. This is why in natural, healthy, grounded and aligned society, women actually all bleed at the same time and with a perfect rhythm based on the Moon phases.

For example, would that be nice and efficient to know that let’s say every 3rd week of a month each woman can fucking destroy you because they are all embodying the same badass Warrior archetype simply based on their hormones cycle and on the position of the Moon at that time.

Knowing that we can learn how to better flow with the natural Rhythms and cocreate with different energetic qualities and forces around us, we could be so much more efficient and smarter about our collective Energy use.

We would also know that every 4th week of the month, most women will not show up to work because they need to take care of their bodies and their overall health, and we would plan our business meetings and planning logistics accordingly.

This would actually make our organizations and businesses way more efficient, productive and successful.

OK, I do not have ‘numbers’ to prove that statement. But honestly, I think I am ready to put my hand in the fire to prove this point.

I am profoundly convinced that if an organization is willing to experiment with a company policy where women can take 2-3 days off during their menstruation period with no questions asked, the overall efficiency, productivity and actually all of the progress-money-growth-related KPIs will highly improve for that organization.

Every single woman in this world deeply knows that if she takes appropriate care of herself, isolated from the noise of society in a comfort, rest, calm and complete self-love during the few days she bleeds, she will be literally unstoppable the rest of the month. The recharge of her batteries and the extent of the creativity flow she would experience after taking this time off would blow your mind.

Productivity and efficiency are not about Time. Real productivity is about Power, not time. The success of your organization depends mainly on how smart you are about using the time you have and how much energy you have in your batteries to accomplish a specific task.

Not only how much time. But also. How much energy.

We often hear: Power runs the World.

And every high school student knows from their physics classes that

Power = Energy/Time.

If you want to have Power, you need to master both aspects of that equation.

Asking people to work more time with less energy is stupid. Even asking people to work more time with the same amount of energy is also mathematically and physically stupid.

This strategy will take your overall quantity of Power away from you. Your Power will actually decrease! It’s a very silly illusion that lives in your conditioned mind that more Time = more Power, more money or more whatever else. It’s actually the opposite.

If you ignore Energy, you ignore and you actually don’t know anything about the Power itself.

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Beside all women, the 13-months calendar would be way simpler to use for every farmer and gardener in this world as well, and help them to appropriately plan their planting and harvest periods.

Like all living Life, plants, crops, trees, etc. are actually also deeply interconnected to the movement of the Moon. Because the Moon influences the behaviour of the water. And water is present in all forms of Life.

Gardeners and Farmers, who really master their Art, base their agricultural agenda on the Moon cycle. Because they understand the relationship between the natural elements and how to optimize them in order to increase efficiency and productivity of an overall ecosystem.

Understanding the deeply cyclical nature of time is just a must to help us become more connected to Nature and to understand the real coherence and beauty of natural cycles and rhythms.

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I’ll stop with the advantages here, if you are interested, I invite you to do your own research and experimentation about it. Honestly, this is a highly fascinating topic.

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I guess you have already guessed that I seem pretty much in favour of this kind of calendar.

So far, I honestly have a hard time finding any disadvantage to it.

So, what a fuck happened? How did we end up with something like this? Why?

How does it make sense to anyone? How did it become so complicated? Why are we so convinced that this is the best system to talk about the time we have established so far?

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If we go a bit further in the history of calendars, before a 12-month year, at some point we had a system with 10-months year.

And the reason for this was very simple back then.

Because our main numerological system is a 10-based system. This is how we have established some meaning from and around numbers. This is like the underlying source code that we have created when we have created numbers.

But we could have a 12-based system, or Pi-based system, or 0 and 1 binary-based system. It does not matter. It’s just a meaning we attached to symbols. It has nothing to do with real mathematics.

To better understand what I mean, I invite you to watch this small but highly entertaining video.

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So, what happened? Did someone get magically illumined by the higher wisdom and have decided to make a calendar 12-based instead of 10-based system?

Or not.

This is a small quote from this article.

‘Julius Caesar's astronomers explained the need for 12 months in a year and the addition of a leap year to synchronize with the seasons. At the time, there were only ten months in the calendar, while there are just over 12 lunar cycles in a year.

The months of January and February were added to the calendar and the original fifth and sixth months were renamed July and August in honour of Julius Caesar and his successor Augustus.

These months were both given 31 days to reflect their importance, having been named after Roman leaders.’’

The bloody Romans is why. OK. I see now.

So, we could actually say we internationally use an Ego-based calendar more than a Nature-based calendar. Eh well. Who would be surprised.

OK, but why do we keep that then? How about that beautiful and logical fixed calendar proposed more than a century ago?

Why didn’t that work? Why don’t we use it today?

Here is why, this time with a quote from this link.

‘The 13-month calendar was not easily divisible. The first quarter-year would always end with April 7 and the second quarter would begin with April 8. The half-year would begin with the 15th of the new month, Sol, and the last quarter would begin on September 22. This arrangement gave to each quarter three months and one week, or three and one-quarter months, causing fractional months. This fact alone would cause inconvenience to all activities and businesses based on quarter-years.

Another feature, looked upon with disfavor in the United States, was the change of familiar dates such as the Fourth of July, which became Sol 17. Then, too, the complete upheaval that would result from the adoption of this calendar was overwhelming in its effect.’

You fucking joking with me.

The main disadvantage of that was that we were not able to deal with the inconvenience to businesses based on quarter-years and because we are too attached to the date of July 4.

Despite all the evident and very rational, simple, useful and even beautiful advantages of 13-months calendar, we still use a very complicated, non-logical, ego-based calendar that no one seems to intuitively understand.

This is ridiculous.

Anyways.

I think I have enough of this research rabbit hole for today.

But. Wow. So grateful for this little exploration about numbers, time and power I was inspired to do this morning.

So much pleasure and somehow also an astonishing amount of clarity about our system today, about us and our very questionable number-based collective belief system.

Once again Thank You Mathematics to teach me the real value and meaning of numbers.