Why the week matters?
The seven-day week is so embedded in human civilization that we rarely pause to question it.
On the closer look it becomes indisputable this ancient unit of time has shaped how humanity organizes itself more profoundly than any other temporal measure.
Throughout human history, different cultures have grappled with time's nature.
Eastern traditions saw time as cyclical, repeating cosmic cycles of creation, preservation, destruction, and renewal. Abrahamic religions introduced linear, directional history moving toward an eschatological end. Greek philosophy gave us Chronos - measurable time - and Kairos - opportune moments within the flow.
If we think about time away from any system, it is just a continuous present in which life happens. A term 'deep time' comes to mind, where there is just a flow of experience and change away from any subdivisions. That state, however attractive, is not conducive to collective operations, and in order for society to function, a system of shared temporal meanings needs to be created for the collective to operate effectively. It has not always been the case, but at some point a system came to be, and the most interesting unit of time for us is a seven-day week, since it is an invented unit, but essential for the organization of society and humanity as a whole.
The seven-day week dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, tied to lunar phases and the seven visible celestial bodies: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn.
It was adopted widely through Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions. The reason week as a unit seems to work, is becasue it is rooted in multiple dimensions:
The lunar cycle gave it natural anchor The seven planets gave it cosmic authority The sacred number seven gave it symbolic power The week created a repeating rhythm that structured religion, work, community, and culture in ways no other time unit achieved.
We are grounding our product in significance of the week, and are using it to create a cyclical reflective framework that we utilize to adjust the way we think about the flow of time. Our perspective is derived from the lifestyle that we lead away from the 9-5 order of work, which allows us a flexibility to observe the flow of time, and create a structure that is more naturally aligns with our individually unique rhythms.
Our mission is to create a system that allows the individual to tap into Kairos time, and to discover the moments and periods that contain unique opportunities for specific actions and activites, and orient the life around the concept of timing as oppose to the concept of linear time.
We invite you to try Cadence for yourself and discover your own temporal patterns and rhythms.