Time
22/09/14 05:24
The earth is in equinox - well technically the equinox occurs at 2:29 am Universal Time, which is 4:47 here, so this is about as close as I will get, depending on when I finish this blog entry and get it posted. We get two equinoxes each year, one in September, the other in March. The September equinox signals that winter is approaching in the northern hemisphere and summer is approaching in the southern. At equinox, the dividing line between the sunlit half of the earth and the nighttime half of the earth passthrough the Earth’s north and south poles. That means that the length of the day and the night is the same. Since our planet has a tilted axis, for the next six months we will have days that are shorter and nights that are longer. So much for an explanation of the seasons - that is about as much as I know.
Several of the plains tribes measured the age and wisdom of an elder by the count of winters. By that count, I’m entering my 62nd winter - not bad for most of the generations that have lived on this planet, but not remarkable for the current generation, where life expectancies have increased. I’m still considered a reasonable risk for life insurance. The statisticians believe that there are likely more winters in the old guy.
I think that some people are more able to adapt to big changes in climate and surroundings than others. I have dealt with the various changes in location of my life fairly well, but I’ve spent my time in temperate climates. In fact, except for four years of living in Chicago, I have lived in the Mountain Time Zone for all of my life. Time zones are a bit strange around the world and the boundaries in the United States follow lines that are a bit hard to understand. We happen to have lived relatively close to the dividing lines for all of our professional careers. Here in the Dakotas, the time line follows the Missouri River for the most part. There are a few exceptions. The thing is that the river flows from the northwest to the southeast across the two states, which means that there are places in northwestern North Dakota that are in Central Time and are west of our location which is in Mountain Time. When we lived in Idaho, we lived in a little bulge of Mountain Time as well, with points that were east of our location in Pacific Time. It’s a bit confusing.
The band Chicago had a hit with a song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
It is a big deal to scientists - so much so that the measurement of time is coordinated at an international level. International Atomic Time is measured by a series of atomic clocks around the world and is pretty much the standard for scientific observations. For most of the rest of us, an older standard, Greenwich Mean Time, adopted for transportation and navigation purposes is the standard time. It is determined with telescopes and is calibrated to the mean solar time. These days it is also referred to as Universal Time.
More interesting to me is philosophical time. There are a few interpreters of the Bible who attempt to apply modern scientific time to counting the passage of time in the Biblical stories. They ignore the simple fact that the people in the stories did not use the same standards for measuring time. We all know that time seems to pass at different rates, depending on circumstances. Time spent playing with a grandchild seems to pass more quickly than time waiting in a doctor’s office. Our forebears didn’t worry about atomic clocks or even sophisticated calendars. They estimated the passage of time based on the significance of the event and the importance of the lives they were commemorating.
I was thinking about time yesterday as I listened to a delightful concert presented by Arjun and Aparna Ayyangar. We met Arjun and Aparna a year ago when their family came to Rapid City for Arjun to attend Sought Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Now, at the age of 16, Arjun is a sophomore at SDSM&T, majoring in math. He is three years younger than the youngest of his classmates. He’s not just a whiz at math, either. He began his musical performance career at three years of age. He was featured on NBC’s “America’s Most Talented Kids” at age 4. He’s even in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for his ability to play anthems of the world on the piano from memory. He has won many different music competitions. He plays the piano, organ, harp, violin and the santur (a Persian instrument) and veena (an instrument from southern India).
It seems as if he has packed more living into his sixteen years than a lot of other people.
With all of his genius, however, there are many ways in which he is a typical teen. His excitement last spring when he showed me his new driver’s license was so typical of a 16-year-old that it was easy to recognize his age. His calm performance style is apparent, but there is a delightful and particularly boyish grin that comes at the end of each piece of music performed. His idealism when he speaks of ETC, his favorite charity that supports disabled and impoverished children, is as refreshing as that of other teens.
16 years simply means different things to different people. There is no doubt that Arjun has accomplished more than I in the last 16 years. He’s packed a whole lot of living into a really short time. He’s gone places and done things that I will never match.
The critical thing about time, however, is not just the length, but way it can be shared. Yesterday, Arjun, Aparna, and a small audience gathered at the Dahl Art Museum shared the same space and the same music. At the time it was enough to simply have been there to listen.
There are lots of moments. The ones we share are the most precious.
Several of the plains tribes measured the age and wisdom of an elder by the count of winters. By that count, I’m entering my 62nd winter - not bad for most of the generations that have lived on this planet, but not remarkable for the current generation, where life expectancies have increased. I’m still considered a reasonable risk for life insurance. The statisticians believe that there are likely more winters in the old guy.
I think that some people are more able to adapt to big changes in climate and surroundings than others. I have dealt with the various changes in location of my life fairly well, but I’ve spent my time in temperate climates. In fact, except for four years of living in Chicago, I have lived in the Mountain Time Zone for all of my life. Time zones are a bit strange around the world and the boundaries in the United States follow lines that are a bit hard to understand. We happen to have lived relatively close to the dividing lines for all of our professional careers. Here in the Dakotas, the time line follows the Missouri River for the most part. There are a few exceptions. The thing is that the river flows from the northwest to the southeast across the two states, which means that there are places in northwestern North Dakota that are in Central Time and are west of our location which is in Mountain Time. When we lived in Idaho, we lived in a little bulge of Mountain Time as well, with points that were east of our location in Pacific Time. It’s a bit confusing.
The band Chicago had a hit with a song, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?”
It is a big deal to scientists - so much so that the measurement of time is coordinated at an international level. International Atomic Time is measured by a series of atomic clocks around the world and is pretty much the standard for scientific observations. For most of the rest of us, an older standard, Greenwich Mean Time, adopted for transportation and navigation purposes is the standard time. It is determined with telescopes and is calibrated to the mean solar time. These days it is also referred to as Universal Time.
More interesting to me is philosophical time. There are a few interpreters of the Bible who attempt to apply modern scientific time to counting the passage of time in the Biblical stories. They ignore the simple fact that the people in the stories did not use the same standards for measuring time. We all know that time seems to pass at different rates, depending on circumstances. Time spent playing with a grandchild seems to pass more quickly than time waiting in a doctor’s office. Our forebears didn’t worry about atomic clocks or even sophisticated calendars. They estimated the passage of time based on the significance of the event and the importance of the lives they were commemorating.
I was thinking about time yesterday as I listened to a delightful concert presented by Arjun and Aparna Ayyangar. We met Arjun and Aparna a year ago when their family came to Rapid City for Arjun to attend Sought Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Now, at the age of 16, Arjun is a sophomore at SDSM&T, majoring in math. He is three years younger than the youngest of his classmates. He’s not just a whiz at math, either. He began his musical performance career at three years of age. He was featured on NBC’s “America’s Most Talented Kids” at age 4. He’s even in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not for his ability to play anthems of the world on the piano from memory. He has won many different music competitions. He plays the piano, organ, harp, violin and the santur (a Persian instrument) and veena (an instrument from southern India).
It seems as if he has packed more living into his sixteen years than a lot of other people.
With all of his genius, however, there are many ways in which he is a typical teen. His excitement last spring when he showed me his new driver’s license was so typical of a 16-year-old that it was easy to recognize his age. His calm performance style is apparent, but there is a delightful and particularly boyish grin that comes at the end of each piece of music performed. His idealism when he speaks of ETC, his favorite charity that supports disabled and impoverished children, is as refreshing as that of other teens.
16 years simply means different things to different people. There is no doubt that Arjun has accomplished more than I in the last 16 years. He’s packed a whole lot of living into a really short time. He’s gone places and done things that I will never match.
The critical thing about time, however, is not just the length, but way it can be shared. Yesterday, Arjun, Aparna, and a small audience gathered at the Dahl Art Museum shared the same space and the same music. At the time it was enough to simply have been there to listen.
There are lots of moments. The ones we share are the most precious.