"How did it get so late so soon?"

 

Time

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

Dr. Seuss

          I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately. One of the reasons for this is how difficult it is at my age to accurately place past events and people in time. Was it ten years ago or twenty? Did I know her from work or the ballpark? I wonder whether you do this too.

          Even the experts have trouble agreeing upon what time really is. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, space and time are two of the four dimensional structures, and everything that has happened has it’s on coordinates in spacetime. Other physicists state unequivocally that time is not real—it is a human construct to help us differentiate between now and our perceptions of the past. According to MIT physicist, Max Tegmark, “We have the illusion, at any given moment, that the past already happened, and the future doesn’t exist yet, and that things are changing…But all I’m ever aware of is my brain state right now. The only reason I feel like I have a past is that my brain contains memories.” (Express website: “Time is NOT real—Physicists show Everything happens at the same time”)

          We remember because images and words are stored in our brains. Our remembering happens in this moment—in the NOW. But we also have physical evidence of past events—like some of the structures in Europe that were partially destroyed during World War II and rebuilt using what remained. Like the pyramids in Egypt and the statues on Easter Island. We have rubble in Syria to demonstrate bombing that happened in the last ten years. We have ariel photos taken in the 1950's showing stretches of earth, and pictures of that same stretch in the present. We can see and measure the change. Change happens on a universal scale too. The universe is expanding now, but many scientists believe that at some point it will begin to contract. And then, time will move backwards.

          It’s all too much for my limited grey matter, but I like to think about it. This much I know: the past is very much alive in memory, and we can call it up in the present. The future, while uncertain, will come with or without humans believing one way or another. The child that I was in the past, still lives within me in the present. And the same is true of each of you.

          I believe that we hold memories so that we can keep our connections with our ancestors alive and move humanity forward on the spiritual plane. It has nothing to do with minutes and hours and everything to do with growth in human consciousness. This time next year, I hope to be wiser and more compassionate than I am today. How about you?

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane