Many conversations at home are about a beginning: What time do we go to Grandpa? Am I excused? I want to celebrate my birthday next weekend. What happened to my new socks?

Questions like these assume that the beginning happens at a specific moment, the moment that ‘it’ begins. But that’s an illusion. For example, when does the going to grandpa begin? Is it when the front door is locked and all are in the car? Or does the beginning start earlier, when making sure that the dogs are outside, all wearing suitable clothes and had a stop at the bathroom and have some entertainment for during the ride, and …? Or even much earlier, for example the day before, when one of you raised the topic “Do we all go to grandpa, or can I …?”. Wasn’t that the real beginning of the going? Or …?

So how exact can we determine ‘the beginning’ and why is that moment the moment it begins? Here are a number of different beginnings, but feel free to create your own examples.

• the beginning of the week
• the beginning of your birthday
• the beginning of the rain
• the beginning of your friendship with …
• the beginning of the Corona virus ‘pandemic’
• the beginning of the Stone Age
• the beginning of your sleep
• the beginning of Spring
• the beginning of the unpacking of the dishwasher
• the beginning of your anger, when …

In Latin there is the saying:

omni fine initium novum

– in every ending [is a] new beginning.

Does that make sense?

 

                                                                                                [Pieter Mostert, 21 March 2020]