Happy Arbitrary New Year

Gregory, what did you do?

In the Gregorian calendar, 1 January marks the new year. It is not the new year in the dozens of other calendars that exist. This is not insignificant.

Although the “new year” is celebrated with fanfare and increased alcohol consumption, aside from hangovers, absolutely nothing changes between 31 December and 1 January. Nature, including all the plants and animals, does not know that it is a new year, nor does it care.

Even if we humans care about delineating a new year, there is nothing that indicates that 1 January should be the first day of a new year. Why not on 1 August? Why not any other month? Why not winter solstice or spring equinox, which are actually astronomical events? Non-Gregorian calendars consider the new year to begin on these or other dates.

Time Is Arbitrary and Relative

Our calendar is called the Gregorian calendar because it was decreed by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. It replaced the less accurate Julian calendar that was decreed by Julius Caesar in 45 BCE. Thus, for 2068 years, the Western world has had their calendar dictated by authoritarians based in Rome.

How we measure time is largely arbitrary. Only two units of time are connected to tangible events. We define the year as 365 days…