I've always been a visual thinker and no one told me not to do this, it was just how my imagination made sense of the topic that far greater minds have wrestled with through out history.
When most people think of a timeline be it historical or otherwise it tends to be a horizontal linear line moving from left to right. They view if almost from a third person perspective, an observer if you will.
When I view the subject of time in my mind I see it more from a first person perspective with me in the current/now looking ahead to the next minute, hour, day, month, year etc.
How I see a week in my mind.
Even though I've pictured this concept in my head my whole life I've never bothered to share it with anyone, it just never came up and when I have thought about it I've never spent more then a few seconds analyzing it.
One day about five years ago while driving with my wife I was telling her about a cool program I watched on the string theory. During that conversation I thought about my view of time and shared it the best I could.
My wife furrowed her brow and said "Your mind is weird."
I tried doodling out what I meant but it didn't help and we started talking about something else and I once again let the topic slip back into the recesses of my subconscious.
A week in my mind starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. I think that is pretty normal. But for some reason I've always pictured Sunday being off to the left of Saturday. In other words you take a left at Saturday and arrive at Sunday. Why you ask? I have no idea. It just feels that way to me.
So in my head time marches onward forever stair stepping to the left.
( I tried to show my diagram in more of a perspective but I kept having errors with Illustrator.)
This same stair stepping format applies not just to the days in a week but also to the hours in a given day. Instead of a circular aspect for time I've always thought of it within the same visual framework as I do days in a week.
Midnight is like Saturday and so on. At this point in my post you're probably saying the same thing my wife said to me? You have to admit it's at least interesting even if you think it's a bit psycho. But if you think this is weird you should read up on the latest in Quantum Mechanics.
How I see a year in my mind.
This same structure of thinking also shapes my view of an entire year. But I'll admit this has more to do with a feeling then anything else. July and August feel like a Saturday, September feels like a Sunday and so on. And once everything is moving to the left.
The Stair Stepping of Time.
So why would I devote a blog post to this? Well, because it came up again today. I was driving somewhere with my daughter and she asked "Where are we going?" to which I replied "We'll take a left at Saturday."
When I got home today I decided to document what has been floating around in my head since childhood. The diagrams in this post represent how I see time in my own minds eye.
A new day: Someday
Have you ever wondered where the days of the week got their name? It's an interesting bit of history. I've often fantasized about creating a new day to add to the calendar.
It would fit in between Sunday and Monday and I'd call it Someday. Basically forever creating a three day weekend and serving the purpose of playing catch up on all those things you never have time to do or finish. You know what I mean. How many times have you heard someone say:
"I'll get to that someday."
Well now they could, literally.
Creating a bigger step.
I know someone will read this post, neglect to discern the sarcasm and humor and feel obligated to post a comment that this idea wouldn't work because of the lunar calendar or it would conflict with the time continuum. Regardless I welcome your feedback.
There are other aspects to this that I could expand upon and perhaps I'll get to that Someday? We'll see. ;-P
