Yesterday I wrote about time. It’s been a recurring topic all throughout this newest writing experiment of mine, of which today marks the fortieth consecutive day. Time has also been a recurring concern of mine for as long as I can remember. Time; this invisible yet inescapable, incredibly mysterious concept that seems to be totally understood by all and seldom given a second thought, but which is really one the biggest mysteries of our existence. I mean, it seems really straight-forward in a way. There’s the past, there’s the present, and there’s the future, right? How much more complicated can it get? Well, the first major complication emerges when we analyze that previous statement, and we notice that time is not as easily definable as we would like to believe it is. How can you define time when you remove the past from the equation, or when you put the future to the side? Time, by nature, passes. It is never static, and it is always moving and changing, one second flowing into the next, the seconds bleeding into the minutes of the hours that make up the days of our lives. Is the present also time then? How can the present moment be time when time is something that is constantly moving and changing, never staying still? Does the present moment fill that description? Is the present moment something static, or is it something that is always in motion? We would think of the present moment as a single moment; therefore, we would describe it as static. So, is the present moment to be reduced to the current second? I think that might be too long of a timeframe. What about the current millisecond? We could always zoom in deeper and deeper, but the point is that, the closer we zoom in, the faster the units change. A millisecond is finished before we can even describe it, before we can even call it the present moment. However, if you start saying “This is the present moment” during one millisecond, you will finish that statement during another millisecond, yet the statement will still be correct and accurate. The moments have changed, but every different moment is still the present moment, at that moment.
Tomorrow we might talk about the fun times we had last night, and our experience will be labeled as the past. The thing is that yesterday is actually dead, it is gone for good and it is never coming back. Yesterday is only alive in our memories, and out of a group of people who shared an experience, we are all sure to remember the events that took place a bit differently. You might not remember exactly what color shirt I was wearing the other day, so your mind might fill in the blank with the color green. For whatever reason though, I do remember what color shirt I was wearing, therefore I have a more accurate description in my mind of what actually took place, or of how things actually looked, that night. There are various differing memories of one experience, so if we were to claim that the past is real, then we would have to accept that there are multiple versions of the same reality, of the same past, existing simultaneously. This absurdity perfectly illustrates the fact that the past really does not exist. So, if the past and the future don’t really exist, except in our own heads, then what exactly is time? If we’ve always described time as what happens when the past changes into the present and the present into the future, but now we’ve come to the realization that the past and the future actually don’t exist, then how are we to describe time now? What exactly is time? It seems like our realization has ended up with us being more lost than ever when it comes to time. Could it simply be the case that time actually doesn’t exist, that everything is the present moment, and that the present moment is all we should really concern ourselves with? Would this lead to an overall higher life satisfaction, or would it lead to reckless and selfish decisions that will be sure to ruin our lives or those of others, assuming that tomorrow does exist for us or for those we interact with? These are fascinating ideas to me, and, as with everything else in life, I suspect the answer lies in some sort of delicate balance that must be maintained. We’ll dive deeper into this in future posts though, or in future present posts (hah). I appreciate you reading. Wishing you all the best.
If you have a few minutes check out one of my favorite songs ever, ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd. Super epic.
rebel eye 