[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":9},["ShallowReactive",2],{"post-\u002Fblog\u002Fcleopatra":3},{"path":4,"title":5,"description":6,"date":7,"rawbody":8},"\u002Fblog\u002Fcleopatra","The Timeline Glitch","Why your brain flattens history.","2025-12-05","---\ntitle: 'The Timeline Glitch'\ndescription: 'Why your brain flattens history.'\ndate: '2025-12-05'\n---\n\nOur brains are terrible at processing \"deep time.\" As we look backward, we instinctively compress distinct eras into a single, muddy blur.\n\nWe categorize everything before year zero as \"Ancient,\" failing to register the massive voids in between.\n\n> \"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.\"\n> — L.P. Hartley\n\nThe most violent example of this distortion involves Egypt.\n\n### The Glitch\n\nYou likely picture Cleopatra standing in front of the Pyramids while they were being built. It fits the aesthetic. It feels correct.\n\nThe reality destroys that perception.\n\nCleopatra VII died in **30 BC**.\nThe Great Pyramid of Giza was completed around **2560 BC**.\nThe first McDonald's opened in **1940**.\n\n### The Math\n\n1. **Pyramids to Cleopatra:** ~2,530 years.\n2. **Cleopatra to McDonald's:** ~1,970 years.\n\nCleopatra was chronologically closer to ordering a Big Mac than to seeing the Great Pyramid being built.\n\n### The Perspective\n\nTo her, the Pyramids weren't contemporary marvels. They were already ancient ruins, older to her than the Roman Colosseum is to us today.\n\nWe flatten history to make it fit in our heads. Don't trust your intuition on time.\n",1783267423469]