On the arbitrariness of the number 9
Sitting at work and listening to the Thomyk podcast as our mainframes rip through millions of lines of data (before breaking yet again on the code that I am trying to fix) I was reminded by the Thomyk gestalt entity that I had missed a defining moment in civilisation:
09:09 09/09/09
I am bereft. This bereftness has left me worried about my sanity, but not as much as the continuation of my thinking. Not satisfied with merely feeling bereft I decided to share the moment with m’colleague Paul.
“Oh woe”, I said, to anti-paraphrase myself, “Woe! For I have missed this defining moment in civilisation and have let a time of 9s pass me by. Woe I say! Woe!”
“I missed it too”, he said, in a more faithfully transcribed manner, “But you’ll get another chance later on today.”
But no. That would not be correct. At 9 minutes past 9 this evening the time would not be a true 09:09 to me, it would be 21:09 and that would not be right. It would be a travesty of time marking and a celebration of 21:09 09/09/09 would be a hollow sham. Not only am I bereft at the missing of an arbitrary point in time, I have also created, unconsciously, rules governing the celebration of that point. I continue to worry myself.
Never mind, it’s only 11.375 days until 20:09 20/09/2009.
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Posted: September 9th, 2009 under blog.