What is time? Does that matter? (Well, yes - if there was no time, everything would happen all at once. But I digress...)

The passage of time can be rather entertaining — but not if you don't control it. Take control! Define time however you want! By creating your own date/time system (calendar) you can force the universe to your will. Redefine the start, end, duration, speed, flow, texture of time. Don't let anyone else push you around. Carpe focking diem, baby! Yeah!

HOW TO REWORK CALENDARS:

1. Purposing: Consider the goals you wish to attain with your new time/date system. You may aim for any point(s) on a perception matrix of simplicity-vs-complexity, clarity-vs-obscurity, smoothness-vs-roughness, infinity-vs-limitation, or any other ranges of qualities that best suit your purposes.
2. Spin-Offs: Consider the other systems that may be generated by your time/date system: religion, astrology, millennialism, existence, etc. Set their interfaces to your time/date system according to the matrix mentioned above.
3. Indexing: You can start set the origin of your date/time system at any arbitrary point: the birth of yourself or someone else, at some historic event, at the Big Bang, whenever. The event may be observable on a reality matrix, or it may exist in some virtual / imaginary / fantastic realm. The event may have actually happened, or not. All this may or may not be relevant.
4. Measuring: You can set the basic units of time to be any arbitrary measures, based on the regular periods of atomic radiation, planetary orbits, life-cycles, anything convenient.
5. Designating: You can count these units in any number base you wish. And you can name each individual unit any way you wish. Name them for your friends, gods, lovers, demons, pets, slaves, subscribers, abductors, whomever.
6. Cycles: You can have various cycles of different units, or different sets of the same units, overlying each other. Thus you can define any event as an intersection of cycles, a point combining complementary matrices, etc.
7. Padding: You can throw in arbitrary sets of intercalculatory units to make the various components of your overall system mesh. Or you may wish the subsystems to NOT mesh. It's most entertaining to watch each component run off at its own rate in its own direction doing its own thang, eh? But when they mesh, it's almost like a fine machine.
8. Adjusting: You can fudge the recording of actual events to match the significant markers of your system as needed or desired. Similarly, predictions can be adjusted to fit events. Or predictions and events may be allowed to run off in their own ways.
9. Fine-Tuning: Your date/time system may be elastic enough to allow anything to be coincidental. You can stretch or pad your units to match whatever observational reality you wish. Or you may wish to be totally unsynchronized. Whatever.
10. Marking: You can apply arbitrary markers or labels to any desired points in your system.
11. Complexity: You may find it useful to employ multiple time/date systems, possibly a different system for each event or class of events you encounter or observe. These systems may be derived from many different sources; see Robert Anton Wilson's essay How to Live Eleven Days in 24 Hours for a certain approach.
12. Duration: You may extend any given system to cover exactly the duration of time necessary or a specific purpose, and no more or less. Or it may contain all eternity. Or not.
13. Profits: You may obfuscate the differences between systems for your own personal gain.
14. Results: You may lie and cheat. But any cheating is allowable, in order to produce art.

Time is constant (in our current observable universe, anyway); the measurement of it is arbitrary; the manipulation of it indicates intelligence. Have fun.

ADDENDUM: You may also wish to approach the subject from an entirely different angle. Instead of changing the way time is graphed, why not change the underlying structure of time itself? There are several ways to achieve this:

HOW TO REWORK TIME:

1. Time as measured on Earth is based primarily on the orbital dynamics of the Earth-Moon (Terra-Luna) planetary pair around the Sun (Sol). Some calendar systems, such as the Mayan-Aztec, also include Venus and/or other planets in their basic structures. A little planetary engineering will thus suffice to restructure time: change some planetary orbits. Possible adjustments include:
   
   
   1. Push Luna to an orbit whose period (the month) is integral (divides evenly with no leftover fractions) with the (Terrestrial) Solar year.
   2. Push the Terra-Luna pair to an orbit whose period (the year) is integral with the month, and/or with some large epoch of Solar time.
   3. Push Venus, Mars and/or any other planets desired, into orbits whose periods (as viewed from Terra) are integral with the Terrestrial month and/or year.
   4. Push all major planets into more nearly-circular orbits around Sol, to minimize oscillations and epicycles and non-integral periods.
   5. Provide Terra with more major satellites, with orbits adjusted to coincide with the day, week, and/or any other desired period.
   
   
2. Time need not be measured only by Terrestrial-Lunar-Solar cycles. Emigrate to other planets and/or solar systems (adjusting their cycles as needed); and/or create new planets and/or solar systems with the cycles set at desired periods.
   
   
3. It is not necessary to limit ourselves to calendrical systems materials (satellites, planets, suns, galaxies, etc) currently on hand. The ambitious systems engineer may wish to see RE-ENGINEERING SPACE / TIME: Programmer's Guidelines for tips on how to rebuild the underlying structure of the observable universe, and/or to create new universe(s), with time attributes set to desired levels. Be creative!
   
   
4. Working on an entirely different and more intimate level, we can adjust, not time itself, but our perception of time, in order to achieve a radical transformation. Such changes in perception can be triggered by:
   
   
   1. drugs (including organics, inorganics, and biologicals)
   2. hypnosis (including any effective mindcontrol program)
   3. head trauma (including surgery, radiation, implants, etc)
   4. genetic modification (including mitochondrial adjustment)
   5. paranormal intervention (including deities, demons, angels, etc)
   
   
5. Finally, we can bypass time altogether, place ourselves outside of time. Transcendence, death and/or rebirth, encapsulation in a blackhole or wormhole or other anomaly, and just smashing clocks and burning calendars, all may work.

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   TIME RESOURCES

   Does anybody really know what time it is? Meanwhile, see the Resources page, eh? All sortsa good stuff there, which all used to be here, but the page was a bit too sluggish for the modem-bound, and I like to keep things snappy, so there you have it. —Ric

CONTENTS:

Page 1:
1. How To ReWork Calendars
   
2. How To ReWork Time
   
   Page 2:
3. Time Resources Online
   
4. MetaSearches For Resources
   
   Return to GO!