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ENDLESS PAST WITH NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT

By on • ( 48 )

I can see the future. So can you.

The first thing I taught my granddaughter — after reading — was telling time. They no longer teach analog time in schools, so I bought a couple of those old wooden clocks we had when we were little kids. The ones on which you can move the hands. I wanted her to be able to read a non-digital clock because who knows? She might be in London, looking at Big Ben … and have no idea what time it was.

It took her just a few minutes to figure it out. From then on, she was on the clock. On her way to school. Hurrying home. Being ready on time.

On time.

Life is all about on time. Looking to the future with hope, fear, trepidation, Ouija boards and clocks.

Really, we can all see our future if we choose to look. We don’t always want to. If you want to see the future, take a look at the present along with a peek at the past. Extrapolate what’s most likely to happen. It’s not magic. Very basic logic — and probably not what you wanted to find out. We want to learn something special. The fabulous places we will go and the exciting things we’ll accomplish. We don’t want to know that our lives will be very much what they have always been, with minor alterations here and there.

The future is the present with the flip of a calendar. Intentions made real. Probabilities aligned.

Chinese (Sui) porcelain musicians. They come from the past. We all come from the past. In case you failed to notice.

Chinese (Sui) porcelain musicians. They come from the past. We all come from the past. In case you failed to notice.

My very old Chinese (Sui dynasty) porcelain musicians are on  my mantel having survived 1000 years of the past to be in my present. We all come from a past and are never in the present because as soon as we notice time, it has moved ahead. We never live now and are forever rushing from yesterday to tomorrow. Everyone tells us to stop and enjoy the moment. How can we? How do we find the now in the endless forward pressure of time?

We should not have invented time.

We can see ahead as accurately as we need to. Seeing more would gain us nothing. If we really saw what our future holds, it would be terrifying. We could waste our lives trying to change the future without stopping to realize that the future will rush past the same way “now” is racing. No one would enjoy anything and the future would look flat and hopeless.

Moreover, every one of us has a history that goes back to the beginning of time. The difference between us and the “blue bloods” who lord it over us with their famed family histories, is that they know more of the names and the rest of us don’t. Your family, whatever their name and rank, is no deeper, longer, or more important than mine. We are the same.

I will make one more prophecy which I can guarantee is true.

We will all die. Of something. Eventually.

Whoever preceded us and whoever follows us? We will all meet the end, one way or the other.

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Categories: #Photography, Education, time

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48 replies

  1. rimjhimjethani
    09/05/2017 • 11:25

    These writings about time and future do motivate and inspire us for few moments but as soon as we get in our real scenarios we tend to forget these things and continue doing things we already are doing.
    Indeed related to popular phrase ‘Live in present because present only will decide your past and future’ and the more sayings like ‘Don’t think about past because its gone and don’t worry about future because its not arrived yet’.
    All these things are easy to say and realize but very hard to apply in real terms. Writing about these things do motivate people but for lesser time.
    And yet you never know what’s next thing is waiting for me.
    My notion would be ‘Don’t just exist, Live.’

    P.s: This piece of writing is very motivating and very nicely presented though. Starting with a story and ending it with the ultimate truth which is DEATH. Loved it.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      09/05/2017 • 11:31

      Actually, they may BE meaningful, but they are totally confusing for all of us. We live “in time.” Time isn’t anything, of course, except our way of knowing when to meet for work or play or whatever. Otherwise, I suppose we’d do what kids do … wander about just enjoying whatever comes along which doesn’t seem like such a bad idea either. Having at some point created time as a meaningful part of mathematics, I don’t see us escaping it, though I wish we could.

      I think of it this way (and yes, it is confusing even to me, in my own brain): everything happens now. NOTHING ever happens in the past or the future. If everything happened in the now, maybe there’s some way of recovering all those “now” periods and maybe there’s some way get our current nowness to move into those other nownesses.

      I am a total junky about time travel (obviously — you got that, right?) and even more than I want to travel in space, I want to travel in time. Not forward (to go where no one has gone before? Not me, thank you!), but back. Somewhere pleasant, green, where no one is fighting a war. I might not come back.

      Like

  2. evilsquirrel13
    09/05/2017 • 10:17

    Reminds me of a great George Carlin monologue on the concept of time. And my favorite part from it…

    Stranger: “Pardon me sir, but do you know what time it is?”

    George: “Do you want to know the time now, or when you asked?”

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      09/05/2017 • 11:10

      That’s it, pretty much. Time really isn’t. We use it as a gauge to keep us ticking along, but it’s not a “thing,” just s general calculator. NOW, if ONLY I could get it to take me when and where I want to be. Maybe using dragons? Or … Rainbow Unicorns?

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  3. Journey of Roo
    09/05/2017 • 10:01

    Yeah, i believe in that prophecy that you made ;)… I can also tell a secret about you and i guarantee complete accuracy- ‘you were born’ 😀
    We all, no matter of what color or faith or land material we were fed, were born. Birth brought us all to this world. It didn’t do any discrimination. If not for birth at least looking at death i hope we realize our Oneness. Death knows no racism, no border.. Death embraces us all without exception 🙂

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  4. lwbut
    09/05/2017 • 03:00

    I like and agree with this post, but depending upon your perspective you could say Time created Us. Without time absolutely nothing would ever ‘happen’! We’d just be a motionless motion picture.

    love

    Like

  5. choosingmyperspective
    09/04/2017 • 20:17

    Ah Marilyn, I’ve missed you so while on my big road trip!

    Like

  6. swo8
    09/04/2017 • 16:26

    They aren’t teaching them to tell the time, they can’t add or subtract, don’t know the times table and they don’t know how to write cursive. What the heck are they teaching them anyway?
    Leslie

    Like

  7. Deborah Slavik
    09/04/2017 • 14:55

    This post speaks to me, on so many levels! Thank you!

    Like

  8. Covert Novelist
    09/04/2017 • 14:47

    Couldn’t have said it more accurately. Brava because seriously, you’re right! If you knew the day of your death, you’d avoid that consequence at all cost and or worry about it. Needless to say, it’s important to enjoy the day as is without worrying about what’s ahead or left behind. Not an easy task for some who are born worriers and others that are sooo lax Dasi cal as to miss the present. Aimlessly wasting what time they have on nothingness.

    Like

  9. Martha Kennedy
    09/04/2017 • 13:56

    I always laugh in grim and sardonic amusement when I read an article that says something like, “Drinking 4 Cups of Coffee Daily Has Been Shown to Reduce Your Chance of Death.” OK. so I’m immortal now :p

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      09/04/2017 • 14:00

      Me too. I think I’ll have another cup right now. I have been contemplating the value of getting a percolator. Would stronger coffee make me live even longer? Can you live longer than forever? Are all unlimited sets the same length or are some of them longer?

      Liked by 1 person

      • Martha Kennedy
        09/04/2017 • 14:05

        I don’t know. No article I’ve found has been clear on that point. I recommend a Bialetti Mokaexpress. They are about $30. They make one large cup of espresso that tastes great.

        Like

        • Marilyn Armstrong
          09/04/2017 • 14:19

          That might be a better investment than a percolator. Garry doesn’t want to clean a percolator and I can’t blame him. The drip machines are fine and we can always add more coffee to make it stronger. How caffeinated do we really need to be?

          Liked by 1 person

          • Martha Kennedy
            09/04/2017 • 14:39

            Hard to say. I drink my big cup every morning to assure my immortality, but I really cannot handle more. At least I know there will be one great thing every day. 🙂

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  10. trentpmcd
    09/04/2017 • 13:30

    “You know, I could write a book. And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox. Cause I can see the future and it’s a place – about 70 miles east of here.” Sorry, I often slip into obscure lyrics by obscure performers (Laurie Anderson,”Let X Equal X”). But then again, this song is all about how predictable people can be and that the future isn’t that difficult to see. Nor is the past. The “nobility” are just the people whose families were the most violent back in the day…

    Liked by 2 people

  11. angloswiss
    09/04/2017 • 13:28

    Today Mr. Swiss were talking about time and we reached one conclusion. When we were working we were convinced time would slow down when we were retired. It didn’t. It is going at the same pace, although we have slowed down, so it is faster. And I really do not want to know what the future holds for me. I still have a few books I want to read first of all.

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    • Marilyn Armstrong
      09/04/2017 • 13:30

      I often feel that it is going even faster. Summer passed this year in one big rush. I never got even a few days to just sit outside and enjoy it before it was over!

      As for the future, I don’t want to know either. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. Fandango
    09/04/2017 • 13:24

    As someone once said, those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it (in the future). Or something like that.

    Like

    • Marilyn Armstrong
      09/04/2017 • 13:28

      This is one that I think a lot of people have said in one way or the other. I think more to the point that rulers and leaders who think the past doesn’t apply to them, that they can do it again without getting the same (or worse) results … are fools. Dangerous fools. It’s not that we repeat history precisely. History doesn’t happen twice, but as Mark Twain commented: “It rhymes.”

      Liked by 2 people