Stay with me here

You might recall that October 31st is International I Need Some More time Day and is actually 48 hours long instead of the usual 24. As handy as this is, it turns out there are repercussions, the biggest being that despite our valiant efforts, it still takes a certain amount of time for the Earth to orbit the Sun, which is where we get our concept of years. Thus, celebrating IINSMTD kinda screws things up by shifting the calendar around.

To compensate, January 23rd is January 23rd Does Not Exist Day, bringing us back to normal (well, nominal, let’s say.) This was determined by an astute group of astronomers, sociologists, and numismatists as being the least valuable day in the year, so the easiest to get rid of. Therefore, those that celebrated IINSMTD can find themselves back on track, perhaps soothing some of the enmity earned during the winter holidays.

You may have spotted what many perceive to be a problem, however. If January 23rd does not exist, then the holiday on that day cannot exist either, which is what eradicated that day to begin with, thus it exists, and so does the holiday. The majority of people consider this a paradox, but that’s actually incorrect. The existence or not of the day and/or the holiday are consequential; one relies on the other, so there is always a ‘then’ to any given ‘if.’ If we celebrate the holiday, then January 23rd does not exist. And if January 23rd does not exist, then we have no holiday to dismiss it. Rather than being mutually exclusive, they both exist in a constant state of flux relying on the other, creating not exactly perpetual motion, but perpetual changes of state at least. No energy is involved, and nothing physical, so this isn’t quantum indeterminacy or anything silly like that. Instead, this is Appellative Redeterminacy.

This is not to say that it has no impact, however. Since the day is in a constant state of flux between existence and nonexistence, then anything that happens today may not actually happen, depending on whether it happened (or not) in the picosecond between the day existing and the holiday eradicating it, or the picosecond between its nonexistence and the holiday’s extinction that brings it back. Just be aware that anything important today might not be.