The Babylonian man looked up curiously at the moon and began to draw patterns.
At first, he knew of only one pattern: he rose with the sun and he slept with the moon. He was born with this pattern and it required nothing of him.
This pattern of the sun rising and the sun setting was referred to as a day and everyone understood it perfectly well, even the young children.
Eventually the Babylonian man stepped outside of himself, noticing the differences in the moon over the course of many days. He was particularly fond of the crescent moon and he noticed that it would repeat itself after a cycle of roughly twenty-nine days. He decided to always celebrate its “first” appearance, or the beginning of every cycle. The group of days in between each spotting of a crescent moon become known as a month.
As the Babylonian man continued to acquire knowledge, he noticed yet another pattern: the position of the Sun was not only a function of the time of day, but also of where on Earth man was at the time of observation. He noticed that after a certain number of months, which consist of days, the Sun would end up at exactly the same position in the sky, assuming the point of observation remained constant. This pattern of the Sun’s return to its previous and exact position in the sky on a given day became known as a year.
With these patterns, and these patterns alone, man was happy.
For thousands of years, the pistons on the engine of progress fired, and fired, and continued to fire. Man developed new ways to organize himself and structure society at large. Labor was divided and man began to specialize and trade, increasing man’s productivity, efficiency, and overall economic output. After historically having to spread himself thin over the course of many days and months and years, the increase in focus led to an abundance in resources for all men as long as each man was able to trade for what he was missing.
On some days, after the sun rose, man worked. On others, he rested. On some days he produced and on others he traded and, on others, he did both. On some days he worked and on others he painted. On others he toiled the fields and on some days he celebrated with feasts.
Man had divided time and he had divided labor but he had not divided his life. He did not name the days and he did not even name the months. He appreciated the seasons and he counted the years, but he did not deviate from the Earth’s patterns.
Every day that the sun rose was a new day and on its own it stood. Or perhaps they were all the same; there was only one day.
On some days he worked and on others he painted.
The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgement concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life... But in every improved and civilised society, this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall unless the government takes some pains to prevent it.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations