on the passage of time

There are a lot of things that people say when they learn that someone has had cancer, or that your husband has died from cancer. A frequent one is that it reminds us to live life to its fullest. I understand this sentiment, as I have expressed it myself, but that was before it all happened. Since then, it feels like a lost phrase, trying to hold onto something that we cannot control.

Bart lived life to its fullest. Bart stretched every cell of his body to stay with us longer than is humanly expected. And yet, he is gone. No matter what we do or how present we are, we cannot stop time.

—-

And yet, physics tell us that time is an experience rather than a reality. In The Order of Time, by Carlo Rovelli, we learn that “that reality is just a complex network of events onto which we project sequences of past, present and future. The whole Universe obeys the laws of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics, out of which time emerges.” In this context, time is something we experience rather than an objective reality.

—-

But i’m also reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Yuval Noah Harari, which describes the transition of pre-human and then human species through stages of development, to our current Information Age. Humans are a distinct and modern species in our ability to create fiction. This capabitily allows us to organize across gargantuan groups of people; we agree upon laws, family, social order, morals, justice.

In this articulation of human existence, I realize how little of my daily experience is related to the physical realm. So much of my day, my work, my interactions with others, are based in agreed upon concepts, such as society, government, social code, etc.

Understanding human history from the evolutionary perspective distances me from the metaphysical. In the context of species evolution, when did we become soulful?

—-

I find myself thinking about all of this. Bart was deeply scientific and also philosophical; but he was not metaphysical or spiritual. And yet, I feel that he is still around at times. This concept would have interested me before, but now it is my experience, my life. My day to day seems to sprawl across this world and another.

—-

Do these questions interest you? What do we learn from exploring them? Is it an attempt to fight time, or to embrace it? None of it reverses the experience of time. When Bart, my symbol of strong and solid, becomes an experience in the realm of energy, I see how close we all are to this eventuality. None of us escape this fate.

—-

What are you up to this eventing? The kids are away at camp and I’m eating Thai food.

Peace,

NW.