November 6, 2007
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Another Meditation on Time
It is weird and startling how fast the past is being created. I watch as people pass by the window, and then immediately replay them walking past the window in my head. Where is that now? The motion just happened, and I can envision it clearly and accurately, but it is gone in the very moment it happened. The now is forever retreating into the past, so that all the activity surrounding me is continually being drowned in time. What becomes of it? Is it incomprehensibly gone? Does it make sense to discuss the becoming fate of the current view I have with the current thought behind it? The images in movies are stored, and can be retrieved. But the detailed colored reality I see moving around me every moment—does it possess any value of being? Or is this view just to be known by me now knowing it, and then to disintegrate into the laughing well of an infinite fall? For the angles of the faces I see are only seen by me in this minute, and will not hold the power of replication.
As I look around I imagine faded images of people in the location they had just walked, images which gradually dim in intensity until disappearing completely. The past is being created like mist off our backs, and is brightest and most tangible in the moment right after it occurs. But our minds cannot match time’s relentless attention, and we can remember but a thin sliver of all past sights.
Thus now is all we know. The current moment is forever coming and forever going—and thus never really here. The present is infinitely exploding all around us.
Comments (6)
And God forgets all our repented sin.
Now is all we know. How ironic that so few people will really live in this moment, considering all the worrying and regreting about the future and past they will do before the day is done. As a Chinese proverb says, “Chop wood, carry water:” do what you’re doing, live in the moment.
that was beautifully written. Thank you for giving me something to think about.
I’m Shayna.
Nice to meet you.
Have you ever noticed other people while driving? For example, I tend to like to watch others when they don’t think they are being watched. That’s not me being weird, that’s just me being curious. However, what gets me after I glance at the person sitting in the car next to me is that… well (and this is very obvious but we rarely think about it), they are humans – just like me. They think and feel and experience things every day. In fact, what amazes me is that they have a life and a story to tell! Just like me. If only I could have enough time in my life to hear every person’s story. How fascinating that would be!
I think we all have the tendency to not think about a person how they truly are. They are human. They have lives. Many go home to a family (or to their home by themselves) every night. They do things. They have fun. They love. They cry. They question. Most importantly, though, we all have one huge thing in common: we all have a past.
It’s like I never realized this before; suddenly my eyes are open. Strange, huh?
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Remember how fleeting is my life. For what futility you have created all men! Psalm 89:47
Very true.
And I think….that it is cool that you have read Redwall…*nods* Yep.