Visions of Time

 I believe that every moment is eternal. Time does not pass. Consciousnesses persists as we flow from one existence to the next in a nearly infinite progression. We experience this as change as we move through space and we call that Time.  Everything that has ever existed still exists and everything that can exist has always existed. I am bound to a past and a future, not by memory or potential but by matter and space. I believe the linear Arrow of Time is a creation of Biology, not Physics and each individual Life's Narrative is a creation, like our vision, stitched together and inverted internally in our minds to help create a consistent model of the world around us. I believe that Time is how we are made capable of knowing ourselves and the other incarnations of consciousness swirling through the Universe together. I have struggled for two decades to be able to distill my thoughts about Time into this single paragraph and the effort has come with some cost. To believe fervently in your own experience and intuition, and to come to a conclusion diametrically opposed to what is accepted as humanity's experience of reality can be very disturbing.

My estimation of my sanity got a needed boost while I was watching an episode of “Through the Worm Hole” about time and I was introduced to a physicist that believes many of things I do but he has done the math that helps prove them. Julian Barbour is, among other things, the Author of “The End of Time” He describes existence as a series of “Nows” each a separate Universe in itself. I do not expect Mr. Barbour to become a house hold name anytime soon. His ideas have not been readily accepted by everyone in the theoretical physics community. But he has given a great gift; the ability to more freely accept and explore the consequence and artifacts of my perception.

***

The sensation of time is difficult to control. However, there are times in most of our lives when the sensation can become so muted the time seems to hover, warp and nearly stop. These events are usually the great transitions of our lives: marriages, deaths, births, ceremonies marking rites of passage. During these moments you are present in its true meaning. The event is an essential component of your existence, of your passing through place. You have nothing else to do but take part by adding your action and witness. You have no doubts, no discordant voices to pull you consciousness in another direction. These moments mark an epiphany, your manifestation in this plane.

It was the first Summer of our lives together for Rowena and I. She was sleeping beside me on a hot Summer afternoon. A gentle rain was falling, even as sun streamed into the room through 3 small gaps in the curtains. I watched a small thread of dust twist slowly in the beam. As a laid transfixed by it's motion the sound of Rowena's breathing and the sound of rain joined and hushed to silence and then the thread hung in the ether, motionless. At this moment I could feel the past. It was not a memory, I could feel my body stretch into it, connected to everyone I had touched and loved as if I was still beside them, holding them. I knew I had come to the place I was supposed to be, when I was meant to be there. The woman beside me was the person I was to spend eternity with and eternity was there with us. And then the future crashed upon me, the sparkling river of a young girls laughter from the other side of the window. I knew what I heard was the voice of someone waiting for me to join her life. Then the thread began to spin out of the sunbeam. Rowena turned and with her head on my shoulder, still asleep, joined in the laughter from deep within her dream. It was from that moment on, I was aware of my destiny, and I was glad for it.

***

Now that I believe in my forever, to whatever extent I can create my world, I try to craft it gently. I try, as best I can, to create moments that are worthy of living in, present with the those I love. I want to feel Peace. I want Rowena and Ella to know me and I want to know them. I want us to share laughter, to hear it Echo across all of our experiences. I want our silence to be the deep, abiding silence of comfort. I want to hold them as if the thought of time itself can pass away and turn to dust. It is often difficult not to be bitter and jealous of all the Nows I spend in their absence until I realize, that pain is eternal also. To create pain, and worse yet, to share that needlessly with others is a sin that crosses ages. Instead I try to feel the act of being flow through me, to feel space itself connect us. I put my trust in the infinite futures before us. I know the perfect Loving moment is the Heaven of all our longings, and where we dwell forever.

If Ayn Rand Wrote for Gamer Magazine

All across America there are adult children that still live with their parents. But when their parents ask these adult children to pay the Cable TV Bill it's a big problem. These children read a great article in Gamer Magazine about how smart video gamers are and how valuable gamers are to an ungrateful world and how you can buy 2 video games a month for what you pay for cable TV and what's up with all those channels that nobody in their right mind would watch anyway. Well the adult child pays the cable bill, because it's the cable modem that lets him game with his buds on the west coast and if he moves out who would cook for him and do his laundry, but night and day the injustice of the $89.95 and all those channels eats at him. " You know why the cable bills so high OPRAH WINFREY thats right OPRAH WINFREY She makes the local cable company pay way too much for Oxygen and OWN and Lifetime and Hallmark and it's just not fair, those channels suck." So he rips the article out of gamer magazine and uses his favorite magnet to place it on the refrigerator, right at Mom's eye level where she can't miss it. He emails the article to his Dad. He reads it out loud at the dinner table but both Mom and Dad excuse them selves and go out "for a walk" before he can get to the good parts. After a while he gives up because its obvious they are incapable of understanding Gamers Magazine's magnificent prose. But the Ache never goes away. Effing Oprah Winfrey, Bitch. He decides on a course of action!! He will NOT pay the cable bill until all traces of Oprah Winfrey have been removed from from any all cable TV channels! He wears anti Oprah T shirts he bought from Zazzle. He starts his own anti Oprah web site. He organizes a protest march that will culminate in a public burning of VHS copies of “Beloved” and “The Color Purple” that he bought at McKay's just for this purpose. A local News producer hears about the march and although only 4 other non-cable-payers-until-Oprah-is-erased..ers show up cleverly framed shots do not show this. The video goes viral because it makes Moms and Dads laugh to see that they are not the only ones with Oprah haters that drink directly from the milk jug still living at home. But it also resonates with all the non-cable-payers-until-Oprah-is-erased..ers. Soon a movement is born. A manifesto is written, heavily paraphrasing the original Gamer Magazine article. ESPN thinking that on the Venn diagram of cable watchers there is barely a tangent between OWN viewers and theirs decide to bank roll a non-cable-payers-until-Oprah-is-eraseder protest in Washington DC! ESPN really doesn't give a rats a$$ about Oprah or the movement but wants to squeeze more money from cable outlets for THEIR content. With ESPN's support the movement grows until the cable companies agree to ESPN's price as long as the shut the eff up about Oprah because the are still making a bunch of money off her. Moms like Oprah, and Mom buys the food. Eventually, without ESPN's underwriting, the movement fades into history. And the original non-cable-payers-until-Oprah-is-eraseder's book about the evil of the Oprah Winfrey Network is never published. The Ache however never dies.