The vertical hour. A fateful time of the night for any adolescent. It’s the time that many of us, regardless of any other system of belief or disbelief, take one minute out of our daily existence to make a wish. But this mere 60 seconds seems to be a more significant moment than the stock Disney “when you ____ upon a star” version of a wish. It’s probably one of the only moments we take the time to reflect upon the course of our lives: the good and the bad. We take stock of our place at the moment the clock strikes 11:11 and think about where we want to be 60 seconds, 2 days, or 10 years later. I can’t think of a time when more people regularly look forward together with hope in their eyes. There’s something beautiful about that.

Unfortunately, for much of the world, 11:11pm is actually 23:11, a numerical value which lacks almost all of the charm and grace of the parallel palindrome of a moment we know in this country as 11:11pm.