Novum Anni - Dispatch 22
March 12, 2023
The Gregorian calendar, that is, the calendar most of the world uses, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to replace the Julian calendar, yes that calendar, is really dumb.
For one thing, it's split into twelve months of an irregular number of days, whereas if we had divided the year instead into 13 months, every month would have 28 days except for one, and therefore every month could have exactly four weeks, start on a Monday, end on a Sunday. This isn't something that's very difficult to figure out mathematically speaking, but Gregory decided not to do that I suppose.
Beyond the number of months though, the organization and placement of said months is also screwed up. Why does January for instance - the beginning of the year - start on a completely arbitrary day? Why not start the year on the Winter solstice, or the Vernal Equinox, so that the beginning and end of the year would align with the beginning or end of winter? As someone who organizes my life to no small degree by the passage of the seasons, it's really annoying to constantly have a voice in the back of my head going "yeah well spring doesn't actually start in April, it starts March 20th, unless of course it starts six weeks prior to that cause a groundhog said so." It's all very confusing.
Why did I just spend three paragraphs of this Dispatch griping about the calendar? I needed to do that in order to pre-justify my next claim, which is that I celebrate the new year in March. Well, not really, but let me explain.
As is probably obvious from all the other dispatches on this website, I place a lot of value on reflection, self assessment, and planning for the future. The practice of increasing communication between the past, present, and future versions of oneself is, in my view, the single most valuable thing you can do in the name of self improvement.
I do this in all sorts of ways, from my little yellow slips of paper scattered all over my room with notes, ideas, exclamations, or valuable quotations, to the handmade journal I keep for drafting scripts, ranting about life, or logging what's going on in the world. But one of the most valuable ways of doing this for me is to write an annual reflection on how I've changed as a person, the general trends the country and the world seem to be heading in, and my plans and forecasts for the year to come.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
But in my personal effort to fight back against the wrongdoings and miscalculations of the Gregorian calendar, in 2018 I decided to start writing my annual reflections in March. This is for a couple of reasons; for one thing, it's a lot less cold and depressing outside in March than it is at the beginning of January, after all the holidays are over, and the winter weather is no longer welcome. Basically, I find that I'm in a much more cheerful and objective state of mind in March than I am in January. Another reason is that it just makes no sense to me that the year should start with winter. It's not that I'm so opposed to winter as a season, I generally enjoy it a lot actually, but since we're living in the kind of society which still believes in angels, ghosts, tarot cards, and the magical forecasting power of one groundhog, it seems like it must be some kind of bad luck to start the year at the beginning of winter.
This whole thing has really been a long winded, roundabout way of me saying that I just completed my 2023 annual reflection, and am excited to begin another wonderfully consequential year of projects!
Also sorry for the lack of Dispatches or communication over the last month! If you aren't already aware, I was busy doing tech for my High School's spring musical, and so I really haven't had any time for projects of any other kind. I did make a video about it, though, which you can watch here. More projects coming soon! For real this time lol
Thank you, as always, for reading.
​
- ALGC
