When cup-type instant ramen was first released, there were many TV commercials that showed how the three minutes from adding hot water to the time it is ready felt extremely long. The catchphrases used in these advertisements, such as “Wait for three minutes” and “Those long, long three minutes,” became Buzzwords at the time.
For many who have tried it, the time it took to pour in the hot water, watch the steam rise through the small gap in the lid, and wait for the noodles to be cooked al dente and ready to eat must have felt longer than anything they had ever experienced before.
It is impossible me to say whether the actual speed of time passing is faster or slower now than it was in ancient times, but according to the theory of relativity, time and space seem to change depending on the observation point, gravity or the circumstances of the observer.
It is also said that the speed at which time passes varies depending on age and circumstances, and that time often seems to pass faster as we get older.
Of course, there are many ways to live a fun and positive life that are appropriate for one’s age, but once someone falls into the trap of chronophobia, a fear of the passage of time, it can cause life to feel short, and can lead to anxiety and doubts about one’s existence, value, and purpose, as well as negative emotions such as powerlessness and regret, as if one’s will, choices, and responsibilities are controlled by forces beyond one’s control.
Psychological factors also seem to affect our perception of how quickly time passes. For example,
* Sense of time depending on attention:
When you concentrate, time may seem to speed up, and conversely, when you are distracted, time may seem to slow down.
* Sense of time depending on memory amount and memory content:
When you remember a lot of new information or events, time may seem longer, and conversely, when you remember similar information or events, time may seem shorter.
* Sense of time depending on the strength or type of emotion:
When you feel a strong emotion, time may seem faster, and conversely, when you feel a weak emotion, time may seem slower. Also, when you feel happy emotions, time may seem faster, and conversely, when you feel painful emotions, time may seem slower.
In any case, it seems to be theoretically proven, and it may just be a personal thing, but it feels like the calendar is turning over rapidly, from the first month of the year to the last, especially in the last few years. This year is no exception, and it feels like the final month of the year has suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Moreover, December has been particularly busy and hectic, with time seeming to fly by. Perhaps because it’s Christmas, one of the biggest events of the year, in December, people’s behavior becomes increasingly hectic in the two weeks leading up to Christmas, and everyone seems to be busy, rushing around, trying to get from one place to the next as quickly as possible.
Incidentally, in Japan, December is also called shiwasu (師走), and it gives the impression that New Year’s Eve arrives while people are literally running around busy and in a hurry.
The calendar system currently commonly used around the world counts the year of Jesus Christ’s birth as the first year of the Western calendar (Gregorian calendar), with AD (anno Domini) indicating the number of years after the first year of the Western year, and BC (before Christ) indicating the number of years before that.
However, based on the Western calendar, Jesus’ actual birth is now thought to have been around 4 B.C. Furthermore, Christmas should be called the day to celebrate his birth, not his actual birthday, and December 25th, the supposed day of his birth, was chosen because of its relationship with the winter solstice and the new moon, so that it could be associated with the descent of Jesus.
Calendar science is said to have originally been an old term for astronomy, and the solar calendar that is believed to have developed in ancient Egypt was adopted in Europe after passing through the Julian calendar in ancient Rome, and became the model for the Gregorian calendar that is still widely used around the world today. However, it seems that only a few civilizations actually used the solar calendar. Most of the calendars of the ancient Mayan civilization are said to have been in tune with the celestial bodies and cycles of the natural world, and the lunisolar calendar is said to have been used in ancient China, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and other places.
The Julian calendar, which is the basis of the Gregorian calendar that is widely used today, is a solar calendar with 365.25 days in a year. It was implemented on January 1, 45 BC by Julius Caesar (100 BC-44 BC), Pontiff Maximus, Dictator, and Consul of ancient Rome (Roman Republic), and designated December 25th as the winter solstice.
In ancient Rome, the winter solstice was determined to be the same date every year, but nowadays it is considered to be the day when the sun passes 270 degrees of the ecliptic longitude, and the date varies slightly from year to year.
The Gregorian calendar has 365 days in a normal year, but by having 97 leap years over a 400-year period, making those years 366 days, the average number of days in a year over the 400-year period is 365 days + (97/400) days = 365.2425 days (365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes, 12 seconds). This average number of days, 365.2425 days, is only about 26.821 seconds longer than the mean solar year (tropical year) of 365.242189572 days determined from actual observations, and is a marked improvement in accuracy compared to the Julian calendar, which has a deviation of one day every 128 years.
Let’s get back to the topic of the winter solstice and Christmas.
The word Christmas is made up of two elements, Christ and mas, and it is said that “mas” come from the word Mass, which is a liturgy, and is also called the Feast of Nativity (or Nativity Festival).
The winter solstice is the day with the shortest daylight hours of the year. In the past, this day was considered the day when the sun’s power was at its weakest, and the sun’s weakened power gradually revived from the day after the winter solstice, causing the days to get longer. The sun becomes extremely weak, but does not disappear. In other words, the winter solstice was considered a day of rebirth, when the dying sun is reborn with its great power again.
The connection between Christmas and the winter solstice is thought to stem from the following events related to the rebirth of the sun, which date back to ancient Rome:
1. Saturnalia
An ancient Roman festival celebrating the winter solstice, the day of the sun’s rebirth, which is essential for living things to survive, and worshiping the god of agriculture. It is held for one week every year from December 17th.
2. Kalends
Kalends celebrates the arrival of the new year, from January 1st to 3rd.
3. Mithras’ Birthday
Mithraism was a religion that originated in ancient Iran and spread to the ancient Rome via Persia, and was devoutly practiced in the days before Christianity had become widespread.
In ancient Rome (around the 1st century AD), it was customary to celebrate the winter solstice on December 25th as the birthday of Mithras, the supreme god of Mithraism and the sun god. In other words, the ancient Romans called the birth and rebirth of the sun god Mithras the Winter Solstice Festival, and celebrated it as the most important event of the year.
Incidentally, Mithraism is said to have later transformed into Zoroastrianism and other religions, and in any case has influenced various religions, and is still one of the beliefs known as satan worship today. In Japan, Maitreya (Miroku = 369) is thought to be modeled on the god Mithras. Therefore, the disasters resulting from satanic rituals that occur even today are based on the number 369 (or 18 = 666).
Christianity gradually emerged as a major force to replace Mithraism as a religion that all the people of ancient Rome could easily believe in, but the winter solstice festival remained.
As Christianity spread into ancient Rome, it gradually eliminated Mithraism, and by the 4th century Christians had become the most powerful religion. In order to appease the resentment of the Mithraists, Christians adopted Mithras’ birthday into Christianity and decided to celebrate the winter solstice as the birth of Christ. It is said that by that time Mithras’ birthday had become integrated with the Saturnalia and Kalends.
By assimilating it with the traditional winter solstice holiday, Christmas became widely celebrated, reaching Egypt by around 432 AD, England by the end of the 6th century, and Scandinavia by the end of the 8th century. Then, in the Middle Ages, Christianity replaced other pagan religions and spread throughout most of Europe, and as a result, Christmas came to be celebrated across a wider area.
In England, Puritan Oliver Cromwell abolished Christmas in 1645 as part of the Protestant Reformation, and in the early American colonies, for example, celebrating Christmas in Boston was illegal for a time (1659 to 1681). Despite these periods of banning Christmas, it is said that the custom of celebrating Christmas gradually took hold in America after the Revolutionary War (1775-1783).
It was A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens (1812-1870) that established the present-day tradition of giving Christmas charity to the less fortunate.
Returning to the initial discussion of calendars and time, after many Christian denominations adopted the Julian calendar as their religious calendar, it also came to be used as a standard for determining the dates for various Christian events.
However, because the New Testament describes the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ based on the Jewish calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the date of Easter could not be determined by the Julian calendar alone, and it was necessary to adjust it to both the season (solar year) and the phase of the moon (lunar month). So in 325, it was decided that the Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox on March 21st in the Julian calendar would be the day of Easter. As a result, errors in the Julian calendar would directly affect the establishment of the date of Easter.
Pope Gregory XIII ordered the refinement of the Julian calendar, and the revised calendar was used as the Gregorian calendar from Friday, October 15, 1582, and is now used as the common calendar around the world. This was during the Age of Exploration, which means that in addition to missionary work, the rulers also began to control the calendars and time of their colonies to suit their own convenience.
However, although the Gregorian calendar is certainly much more accurate than the Julian calendar, the errors have not been completely eliminated. This is because the ratio of the Earth’s rotational period to its revolution period is not an integer ratio, so errors are inevitable.
In addition, problems such as the date at the start of the year being unrelated to astronomical phenomena, the number of days in each month being irregular, and the number of days in a year not being a multiple of a week, so that calendar days and days of the week do not match, have been pointed out and proposals for calendar reform have been made many times, but they have not yet been implemented.
In terms of the designation of years in the Gregorian calendar, with the exception of astronomical year numbering, the year before 1 AD is generally 1 BC, so there are no years in the Gregorian calendar that have 0 or negative numbers. Zero also does not exist in the Julian calendar, which is the basis of the Gregorian calendar, and it is said that the number zero was not even discovered in ancient Greece, where mathematics was highly developed.
The symbol zero is meant to indicate a blank space in positional notation, and was first used in Babylonia several centuries before Christ, and also in Egypt during the Ptolemaic dynasty (306 BC – 30 BC).
The concept of zero seems to have existed in the ancient Mayan civilization, and zero is also used in the calendar, which began with 3114 BC as year 0 and August 11 as day 0 and continues until December 21, 2012.
Incidentally, it is said that there were nearly 20 types of ancient Mayan calendars, but some have proposed that if the currently used calendar were changed to a 7 x 4 = 28 day month and 13 months year, based on the Tzolkin calendar, which had a cycle of 260 days, it would be a much simpler calendar.
In this 13-month calendar, the sum of the numbers on the diagonal of the dates of each month is 29, the new moon and full moon days are lined up in a straight line sloping downward to the right, and it looks symmetrical, so it is said to give an impression of harmony.
Zero is said to have been used in ancient Indian calendars as well, but in India around the 2nd century, the Sanskrit word sunya, meaning blank or hollow, was used to mean zero, nothingness, or emptiness.
In 628 AD, mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta was the first to discover and work with zero (0) as a number, that is, as an object of mathematical operations.
With the Meiji Restoration, Japan introduced the solar calendar (Gregorian calendar) as the new calendar on December 31, 1872 (December 2, Maiji 5) and abolished the traditional lunisolar calendar (Tenpo calendar) as the old calendar. Therefore, December 3, Maiji 5, which corresponds to January 1, 1873 in the Gregorian calendar, was changed to January 1, Meiji 6, and the calendar days (dates) of the Japanese calendar and the Gregorian calendar became the same.
In addition, the Meiji government changed the time system from an irregular to a fixed system, and introduced a 12-hour system in which a day was divided into 24 hours and the time was indicated as morning and afternoon.
By the way, before this change, during the Edo period when an irregular system was adopted, the length of time changed depending on the season, meaning that the length of time would lengthen or shorten depending on the season. To put it simply, day was from sunrise to sunset, and night was from sunset to sunrise, and each was divided into six equal parts to indicate a time (刻, toki). Thus, the length of days and nights varied with the seasons, with daytime hours being longer in summer and shorter in winter.
However, since people felt the start of the day by watching the sun rise, they must have felt the joy of the start of a new year and the overwhelming feelings of awe and gratitude towards nature by watching the first light of the year, especially on the morning of January 1st (New Year’s Day), when they saw the first light of the year.
In the past, not only in Japan, but also in China, India, Islamic countries, and other countries, a lunar calendar based on the phases of the moon was used, where the new moon was the first day and the full moon was the 15th day. A month has 29 or 30 days, making a year 354 days, which is 11 days less than the solar year of 365 days. To correct this error, Japan created a lunisolar calendar, known as the old calendar, with a 13th month (leap month) every three years to align with the solar calendar.
Because the lunisolar calendar is based on the phases of the moon, the first day of the month is always a new moon, so the moon on the third night is called a crescent moon, and the 15th night is always a full moon, called the 15th night.
Even today, the old calendar has not completely disappeared in Japan, and it remains an important element in haiku and tanka poetry to feel the seasons, and it is also part of daily life. The New Year on the lunar calendar marks the beginning of spring, and not only in haiku and tanka but also in everyday life, people celebrate the return of a new spring (the reincarnation of nature) and the vitality of all life, and express gratitude for the coexistence and harmony between nature and life.
Behind the scenes of this policy, which aimed to completely eliminate Japan’s traditions of appreciating the four seasons and the customs of the common people, were people obsessed with westernization who called themselves progressives and pandered to the rulers, including the freemasons in the government and Yukichi Fukuzawa (福沢諭吉, 1835~1901), the author of Calendar Reform Treatise (改暦弁, 1873).
As an aside, Fukuzawa is known for the famous quote, “Heaven does not create one person above another, nor below another,” but according to his “Encouragement of Learning (学問のすゝめ, 1872),” he did not say that “all individuals are considered equal.” He wanted to argue that the difference between the wise and the foolish, or the difference between rich and poor, arises from differences in learning.
As a further aside, he wrote in his autobiography (福翁自伝,1899) was that after seeing people praying at a roadside shrine, and when he opened the shrine and found a stone inside, he replaced the stone with another one and returned the next day, where people were praying gratefully as they had done the day before. It seems that progressives were also strict on folk beliefs.
In any case, it can be inferred that for rulers, managing and controlling the calendar and time has been a means of demonstrating the legitimacy and authority of their rule since ancient times, and also a way for non-ruling classes to show that submission to the rulers is synonymous with living in accordance with the will of heaven or God.
In other words, although the Gregorian calendar currently dominates the world, it can be inferred that Western calendar culture, which believes that everything begins with the number 1, or some kind of substance, and lunar calendar culture, which believes that everything begins with the concept of zero, or the absence of material existence, have developed cultures and spiritualities based on fundamentally different principles.
This could also be replaced with the concept of materialism versus idealism. Materialism is based on material reality and holds that consciousness and mind depend on material conditions, while idealism holds that the real world is composed of mind and consciousness.
For example, in cultures that use the Western calendar, everything starts with 1, which means that something exists, so material things cannot be lost and therefore must be pursued.
In other words, they cannot live without being controlled and dependent on existing material things, and are led to a state where mental stability or conscious satisfaction can only be achieved through the endless pursuit of material desires. Furthermore, because approaching zero, or in other words losing things, is a fear, people fall into a cycle where they must continue to seek material things in order to be freed from that state. As if to further this state of materialistic obsession, the imbalance of the Western calendar brings about a sense of deficit, a sense of lack or urgency to make up for something, and a sense of impatience as they are pressed for time.
This can also be seen in the materialism of Marx (1818-1883), which states that society is determined not by spiritual things such as people’s thoughts, but by material things such as money and houses.
In any case, it can be said that the rulers make good use of the Western calendar, inciting the commoners to fall into a deep psychological anxiety and never be able to climb out of it.
On the other hand, in cultures that use the lunar calendar, the night of the new moon is a day of moonless darkness, in other words, nothingness = emptiness, and it is also the day of zero, which marks the beginning, so it seems that material things have been seen as not worth clinging to because they are lost. But at the same time, zero always includes the meaning of a starting point, so even if it becomes nothing, it can also be the starting point for creation and new beginnings.
In fact, looking back over the past few years, modern medicine, which is based on materialism, places substances whose existence can be confirmed at the center of things, so treatment is based on what to do with tissues, internal organs, bacteria, blood components, etc., whose existence can be confirmed by some means, or how to eliminate (remove) them.
This worked, and in the case of the virus turmoil, the rulers used computer-graphic images of the virus to incite social anxiety through the media, successfully subjugating the entire world to their command of lockdowns and mask-wearing, and inducing immune deficiencies and excess deaths that threaten the ecosystem by administering relics called vaccines to the body.
In contrast, in natural medicine, which is based on idealism, the existence of whatever the object is is based on a certain idea, so treatment is based on looking at the environment (the idea of a Chinese medical constitutional bias) and creating an internal environment that is less susceptible to disease or that heals naturally, rather than removing or annihilating it.
In any case, even just taking a cultural sphere that uses a calendar that starts from one and a cultural sphere that uses a calendar that starts from zero, it can be said that there is a huge gap in the fundamental principles of the living environment and that each has its own unique starting point.
As can be seen from the ancient Greek myths of the constellations, astronomical phenomena and seasonal cycles have influenced the subconscious and collective psychology, society and culture of the people of each region in many ways. Therefore, rather than confining them to a single framework through globalization, the social characteristics brought about by the calendars and time currently used in each cultural sphere should each be respected.
In Japan, there is a custom of respecting and cherishing the beginning and end of things that mark milestones. The turning points or milestone in English are called “fushime (節目)” in Japanese, a word derived from the nodes or joints in bamboo.
It is said that it is because bamboo has nodes (fushi, 節) that it can continue to grow high into the sky. Important moments and turning points are seen as like nodes or joints in the bamboo, and days distinct from ordinary ones are set aside to hold special events to make a fresh start, ward off evil spirits, and mark a turning point. It is believed that by doing so, people and society can grow, just as the bamboo continues to grow towards the next node.
On the night of New Year’s Eve, which marks the node between the outgoing year and the coming year, bells (joya no kane, 除夜の鐘) ring throughout the town until midnight to free people from the 108 earthly desires, and people solemnly purify themselves in preparation for the New Year.
The twenty-four periods (二十四節気) divide a year into 24 equal parts. The vernal equinox is at the peak of the 24 periods, and the sun’s ecliptic longitude is 0 degrees, and the vernal equinox marks the beginning of things as the concept of zero.
Kunio Yanagita (柳田國男, 1875~1962), known as the founder of folklore studies, examined the deep psychology of the Japanese people, which is also based on Japan’s traditional sense of time through the customs of hare and ke.
Hare refers to extraordinary or special days, such as rituals, festivals, and annual events, while ke refers to ordinary days, that is, days when everyday life is repeated. Hare also includes events related to the twenty-four periods.
The etymology of hare is said to be “晴れ” (hare, clear), which means a turning point or a milestone, but hare days heal the mental fatigue and exhaustion that occur when we are dominated by ke, expressed as kegareru (気枯れる, to lose one’s spirit), and restore vitality to life.
In other words, special events held on hare days, such as at the change of seasons or important turning points in life, allow people to show gratitude to the gods, and by praying for the avoidance of disasters and happiness of their families through specially prepared meals, they can escape from an impure state and return to a pure, healthy state.
The rhythm of life created by the cycle of hare and ke has been passed down through generations as the foundation of Japanese culture.
The end of something in Japanese terms is by no means an apocalyptic demise resulting from Western-style destruction and ruin. This can also be interpreted as a conscious difference between a culture that starts from zero and a culture that starts from the existence of one. In other words, it can be said to be the difference between a culture that seeks coexistence based on understanding and reform, and a culture that seeks transformative growth based on destruction and regeneration.
One end and one new beginning.
Hare and ke in Japan can be seen as a chain reaction in the process of growth. On the path to the destination, nodes constantly appear, and at each stage there is time to reflect and correct any mistakes, so that both individuals and society can continue to make further leaps.
The New Year is just around the corner.
Sincerely grateful for your financial support.
Sources and references:
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Covid-19: The Greatest Hoax in History
FOIA Data Reveals 50% Spike in Deaths in Nation’s Most Vaccinated County Following Vaxx Rollout
Doctor Ordered To Pay Back $600k She Earned Administering COVID Jabs
Bill Gates Wants Americans To Release His ‘Friendly’ GM Mosquitoes Into Neighborhoods Across the US
“Covid-19,” Psychological Operations, and the War for Technocracy
Leading doctors sign HOPE Accord calling for the suspension of all covid mRNA “vaccines”
US Report on Covid Response: Ten Truths and an Elephant Family
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Elon Musk & SpaceX Are Helping US Intelligence Build The World’s Largest Spy Satellite Network
The Philosophy of Provisionality
An Accidentalist’s Guide to Denying the Obvious
Calendar Reform Treatise (改暦弁, 1873)
