Methods, Aesthetics, Purpose

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If you have studied other languages, or studied in detail the grammar of your own, then you’ll have discovered the irregularities associated with the commonest words.  The most basic word of all, “is”, conjugates and declines in ways counter to the general patterns of lesser verbs.  I’m no linguist, but I’ve long believed that happened because of the high frequency of usage.  Practices shared constantly among so many can (often must) adapt quickly to the idiosyncrasies of each participant under innumerable changing circumstances.  Words and practices subjected to that much stress will differ from those that are not, like hoodoos standing above mere sand.
This pattern where regularity of use causes irregular form also shows up in the calendar—yes, that collection of days and months.  My noticing of this came on a random Friday the 13th years ago, when curiosity prompted me to question some basics about the calendar that normally go unnoticed.  For example, if it’s bad for things to end with 13, shouldn’t we fear Saturday the 13th?  And why 7 days in a week?  Why not something more convenient, or at least not a prime number.  Why not make every month the same length, say 28 days so the weeks fit in evenly?  Why do some moths have numeric prefixes and others don’t?  Do we really need a leap day?
So I gradually began a project to make a calendar that had more symmetry and regularity, one that enables mental calculations between dates.  In the end, I came around to what amounts to a rearrangement of the Gregorian calendar, having the same core features, moving leap day to the end of the leap year.  As it turned out there were lots of good, practical reasons for the calendar’s anomalies.
For my project I decided to put my calendar to the test, setting it up in Excel, using its dates on my personal documents, and trying the mental calculations when planning.  On balance it worked pretty well, with exception of having to constantly convert, or track in parallel, the standard Gregorian calendar that we use.  Locating the dates of moon phases was cumbersome because I could only get them in Gregorian time.  Then birthdays, holidays, Holy Days, all in Gregorian time, the time-language of my society.
That was a LOT of effort to have a “nice” calendar.  And it was.  If only I could get all the rest of the country to go along with me!  But, I couldn’t, not without some well publicized, compelling reason, and momentum from influential institutions and people.  That’s when I realized a calendar’s deeper purpose as a touchstone of shared thought and activity.  A calendar does not exist to measure time, but to mark time.  To be more precise it’s a tablet on which the whole society (and the individuals) marks time, and by which it coordinates shared experience. My efforts to improve the aesthetics and symmetry of the calendar completely missed this!
The experience taught me yet again about the importance of purpose to human activity.  I also noticed that our instinct tends to takes purpose for granted, skipping directly to the improving of either the methods or aesthetics.  The latter resulted in my project; the former results in the proverbial Rube Goldberg machine.  Both of these approaches account for many excesses of religious devotion.  And yet in God’s highly resilient world, following these instinctive prompts (method or aesthetic) can lead to a clearer view of, or better appreciation for, purpose.  Domed cathedrals, for example, follow the aesthetic impulse to create structures that speak loudly of God’s glory, in a language unspoken.  But we do better not leaving these things entirely to chance.
Our greater task lies in rightly ordering our impulses to the glory of God.  For this we must practice trusting in God through countless small acts of adoration, supplication, repentance, and by renouncing our perceived stake in the outcomes we cherish.  In short, resting in the Holy Trinity we have better odds at keeping His purpose before us, and choosing better actions to take, whether for practical improvements or beautification, or simply to wait.

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