Chapter Content
Okay, so, um, clocks and calendars, right? It's more than just, you know, ticking and tocking. It's about how timing, like, down to the split second, can seriously, like, totally change everything.
There's this example, this guy, Joseph Lott. He's alive because, get this, he wore a green shirt one day. And Elaine Greenberg, who, like, actually saved his life, she's not around anymore because she took her vacation a week too early. I mean, come on! If you think about it, timing isn't just about when things happen, it’s, like, the mother of, you know, those unexpected twists, those contingencies that pop up.
Think about it like this: flies are always buzzing around, right? Usually, no big deal. But every now and then, one flies into a motorcyclist’s eye, and bam, crash! It's two totally separate things that just happened to come together at a specific moment. It's this "Cournot contingency," they call it, where two random paths meet in a specific place, at a specific time. And that can cause, like, death by millisecond. We're all just, like, at time's mercy, you know?
So, back to Elaine and Joe. In the autumn, she went to Tanglewood and found this tie with a Monet painting, "Sunset at Lavacourt." She knew Joe, her coworker, loved those kinds of ties, the ones with paintings. So she bought it for him, thinking it would be a nice surprise. He was supposed to fly to New York for a conference the next week.
Monday comes, Joe gets on the plane, but there were, like, major storms. The flight, which should have been a few hours, turned into, like, a fourteen-hour nightmare. He finally gets to Manhattan after midnight, totally exhausted. He was supposed to have dinner with Elaine to go over their presentation, but they had to reschedule for breakfast.
Before he crashes in his hotel room, he lays out his clothes for the next day. That's when he realizes his white shirt, the one he planned to wear, is all crumpled.
Next morning, he wakes up, sees the shirt, and is just, like, "Thank goodness I brought a spare." It was a pastel green one. He goes to breakfast at 7:20, and Elaine helps him with the presentation. Around 8:15, she gives him the tie. He's so touched. He says, "Elaine, I’m going to put this tie on and wear it today for good luck." She was all, "Not with that shirt, you're not!" He laughs, but knows she's right. The tie would totally clash with the green. So, he decides to go back to his room to change, even if it makes him a little late. He tells her, "See you shortly." She waves goodbye and heads up to the conference, which was on the 106th floor of Tower 1 of the World Trade Center.
Joe goes back to his room and starts ironing his white shirt. It takes him, like, fifteen minutes, enough time that he's still getting ready when the first plane hits at 8:46 a.m.
He survived. Elaine didn't. Now, Joe only wears art ties, as a tribute to her.
We've all heard those stories, right? The ones where someone has unbelievable luck or terrible misfortune. They seem so crazy and improbable, but here's the thing: those stories aren't that unusual. Timing is always, like, messing with our lives, changing our paths, some changes are bigger than others. In Joe and Elaine’s case, the rainstorm, the flight delay, and that gift, all because of timing, changed everything. It's all connected, one thing leading to another.
When Joe retired, he started traveling and went to an art museum one day. If he'd been in a rush, he might not have gone, might not have discovered his love for impressionist art, might not have worn art ties, and Elaine might not have bought that specific tie. There's, like, a near-infinite number of things that had to happen just right for that breakfast to unfold the way it did. Even the tiniest changes in the past could have changed everything. Everything had to be exactly as it was for Joe to get that tie when he did. Incredible stories, like Joe’s, show us how fragile our lives really are, but, yeah, it's like these coincidences are always shaping us. We just don't notice it until something big happens, and we look back and think, "What if?"
There's this short story by Jorge Luis Borges called "The Garden of Forking Paths." Each moment in our lives is, like, a fork with tons of possibilities. What we do in each moment affects the path we're on, and which forks we'll face next. It's not just big decisions, but the whole journey. It's constant, branching out infinitely. Right now, by listening to this instead of doing something else, your path is forking. Stop listening, and your path forks again. But here’s the really crazy part: some paths that seem open to you are about to be closed off, not by you, but by other people you'll never meet, wandering through their own gardens. And as you move forward, you change the paths of others, too. It's endless.
And it's not just people messing with your path. The storms that delayed Joe's flight cleared up, leaving clear skies. None of the planes took off late or had trouble finding their targets. The Garden of Forking Paths is affected by everything, everywhere, all the time.
The Garden of Forking Paths can also explain change in nature. When mutations happen in organisms, some pathways open up, while others close off. And timing matters. It's not just what the mutations are, but when they happen, and in what order. Each path we take makes some worlds possible, and others impossible.
Time is the invisible thing that's always changing everything. We can't imagine a world without time, because we can only live in the present. But when you look closer at time, all those clocks and calendars we use start to fall apart. Time is actually, like, a really strange thing.
There's this physicist, Carlo Rovelli, who says, "Time passes faster in the mountains than it does at sea level." It's not just a feeling, it's a fact. Gravity warps time, making it slower closer to the earth. Scientists have actually proven this with atomic clocks.
In 2010, they put super-accurate clocks at different heights, one just a foot above the other. And get this, time passed a tiny bit faster for the higher clock. So, technically, your head is older than your feet. It's a tiny difference, but it means there's no such thing as objective time. Time exists in relation to other things, another example of how everything is connected. And time itself is still a mystery.
Our experience of time is shaped by us, too. Our lives follow patterns made not just by the universe, but by us. Our ancestors decided to divide time into chunks that we still use today, a total accident from the past. So it's not just that timing matters, but that how we divide time is totally arbitrary. You'll be surprised how much of your day is determined by people who died ages ago.
We look at calendars to see the future, but they're based on decisions made by small groups of people thousands of years ago. Months were originally based on the moon. In early Rome, they had a ten-month calendar, with the rest of the days lumped into winter. Later, they added January and February, but the original numbering system is still there. That's why September, October, November, and December sound like seven, eight, nine, and ten, even though they're now the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth months. Even our names are just echoes of past decisions. And many household budgets rise and fall as we are paid in intervals determined, originally, by the phases of the moon.
And what about the days of the week? In English, they're based on Norse/Anglo-Saxon gods, not Latin. Tiw became Tuesday, Woden became Wednesday, Thor became Thursday, and Frige became Friday. We say their names all the time without thinking about where they came from. But why do we have weeks in the first place? Who decided on a seven-day cycle?
Unlike other time measures, the week isn't based on nature. The first time we see time divided into seven-day chunks is from King Sargon I of Akkad around 2300 BC, who thought seven was sacred. A seven-day week later appeared in the Hebrew Bible.
In the first century BC, the planetary week showed up in Rome. It had nothing to do with rest or work, but with astrology. They believed certain planets ruled human fates at certain times. Why seven days? Because they could see five planets (Saturn, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus), plus the sun and moon. Romance languages still use these names for the days. In French, Tuesday is mardi (Mars), Wednesday is mercredi (Mercury), Thursday is jeudi (Jupiter), and Friday is vendredi (Venus). Monday is lundi (la lune, the moon). If the Romans had telescopes and could see more planets, maybe we'd have nine-day weeks. Or, if they just stuck to planets, maybe we'd have five-day weeks. There were always other options. The ancient Chinese and Egyptians used ten-day weeks. Imagine how different our lives would be. It's all based on a random mix of history, vision, technology, and astronomy from a small group of people long ago. We follow rhythms based on historical accidents. Time, divided in weird ways, is always there in the background. We usually ignore it.
We're also affected by how our body clocks interact with these time divisions. Researchers have found that people are generally more optimistic in the morning, then have an afternoon slump, and then get happier again in the evening. This is even reflected in music streaming, with people listening to more relaxing music at night and more energetic music during work hours. Most people are also happier on weekends, but the peak is two hours later than on weekdays. This might seem obvious, but it can have a big effect. Because our moods change, serious things can happen because of timing.
For example, when companies announce their earnings, they have to be accurate. But researchers found that morning calls were more upbeat than afternoon calls, even when the data was the same. This was so noticeable that stocks would temporarily be mispriced based on the call's tone. There's no such thing as neutral timing.
How we understand the world is shaped by researchers who tell us how it works. But social science mostly ignores timing. Most economists, political scientists, and sociologists use methods that can't really model exact timing. Few datasets account for the precise sequence of events. It would be hard to model something like a coup happening because of a split second, or that an outcome depends on the order of random events. Instead, they use crude measures, like interaction effects, but without looking at specific timing. Variables are just thrown together, like a recipe where it doesn't matter when you add the ingredients. But most recipes don't work like that, and you'll mess things up if you add flour to a cake after it's baked.
We forget that we're not like a cake. A recipe works in different times and places. But we assume the same is true in human society: that the same factors will produce the same outcome at different times. That's not true. They use this term, ceteris paribus, which means "all else being equal." But in a changing world, all else is never equal. It's rarely a safe assumption. A pattern in one place won't necessarily be true in another. Outcomes vary across space and time. Giving a Monet tie to Joe Lott won't always lead to a life-or-death moment. Many social scientists know these assumptions are flawed, but they still use this "snapshot" view of time as a simplification.
Think about this question: "Do pandemics reduce productivity?" Answering it means assuming that all pandemics are the same, and you can apply lessons from one to another. During COVID-19, office workers could work from home using Zoom. Can you then assume that's how pandemics generally affect productivity?
What if a coronavirus had spread in 1990 instead of 2020? Without computers, video conferencing, or the internet, working from home wouldn't have been possible. If the same virus had appeared in 1950, it would have taken longer to spread. The effects of the same virus would be totally different depending on the timing. We too often ignore these things with ceteris paribus. Such assumptions can lead to big mistakes.
Even when we find stable patterns, the same causes might bring down a government one day, but have no effect the next. The passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 took down their hijacked airplane before it could reach its target, but maybe a different set of passengers on a different day would have acted differently. It's all contingency.
But time isn't totally random. Just as systems can stay stable for a long time before changing, some changes are fleeting, while others stick around, like the seven-day week. Lock-in, the thing that makes it stick, is also arbitrary. For example, the words you're reading have a specific spelling because of historical events and lock-in caused by new technology.
English spelling is weird, right? Sew and new don't rhyme. Kernel and colonel do. Why? Because our language has been influenced by random events that happened at specific times. The Anglo-Saxons spoke Old English. The Vikings added Old Norse. In the eleventh century, the Normans replaced written English with French. When written English came back in the 1300s, it was constantly changing. Word spellings depended on the monks and scribes. "People" might be spelled peple, pepill, poeple or poepul.
Then, the printing press came along. Standardization became important, and words had to be shortened. Hadde became had, thankefull became thankful. As spellings became recognizable, it became harder to change them. But because the language was changing quickly, if the printing press had arrived earlier or later, everything you've ever read would be written differently. Lock-in means that some timings are more important than others. Some random things have staying power.
W. Brian Arthur showed this with technology, calling it increasing returns. In the 1970s battle between VHS and Betamax, it wasn't clear which would win. But once VHS started getting more market share, more people bought VHS players, locking them into the technology for years. Soon, Betamax died out. This lock-in was largely based on timing. Musical instruments are another example. There are almost infinite ways to produce sound, but most people learn to play a small, random set of instruments. Ever heard of a gue, lituus, sambuca, or peri yazh? For random reasons, some instruments dominated, while others died out. Once a set of characteristics are locked in for what it means to be classified as a “guitar,” design experimentation plummets. Standardization reigns supreme.
The same is true for modern dogs. Dogs were domesticated a long time ago, but modern dog breeds arose in Victorian-era Britain. Up until the late 1800s, there wasn't much variation between dog types, and they were classified by their function. Then, a small group of rich, bored people decided to develop dog shows. These "doggy people" gained prestige by breeding new types and classifying them. They created idealized breed characteristics, which led to specialization and standardization. There were two kinds of terriers in 1840. Now, there are twenty-seven. Jack Russell terriers are named after Jack Russell, a Victorian parson who created them to help him with fox hunting. If you, like me, have a border collie for a best friend, its standardized features were locked in after a Scottish court case called the Great Collie Ear Trial, to determine whether a collie’s ears should be pricked, tipped, or floppy. The dogs we see today would be completely different if new breeds were produced and standardized in America in the 1930s, or France in the 1770s. Our canine companions are yet another happy accident of timing and lock-in.
Our simplified ideas about cause and effect fail, because the same causes will have different effects at different times. The precise sequence matters, from the order of mutations that cause cancer to the order of choices we make. In our gardens of forking paths, it's not just which path we take, but when we take it.
We imagine that we can just ignore the "noise," the random events, the uncertainty. But we can't. Even our best experts are often wrong. And that means we don't understand ourselves. So, the question is: Can we?