Digging through my old files I've come across something that I can only figure was the product of some late night free write to clear my head for school work. I say it's relevant because I came across it while finally getting some work done on TheO Story that I'm a part of this year. I've been so busy this past week that I've only gotten somethings done when I have a quiet moment. During one of them I found the following piece and wished I could remember what project I was doing when I had that in mind.
Anyway, tell me what y'all think:
The past, the present, the future. Why do they exist? For as long as history has been written time has been divided as such. So then what of me? An existence outside of time. My first memory is of the time I awoke on the carriage to Galton. I was not young, nor was I old. I was as I am now. Where then exists my childhood?
Humans are conceived by other humans; they mature in the womb of the female mate; and then are born as an infant. That infant slowly grows into a child where they start to interact with the world. As the child grows, learns, experiences, they create memories. These memories are considered the past by that child and the parents. Then the child grows into a man and the cycle of experience once again occurs. This too is called the past. Then the man grows old and again this too is the past. Where then is the present, the future?
Maybe I cannot see it; maybe I’ve grown numb to the passage of time. I remember asking a young scholar a similar question. He looked long into his drink before looking me in the eyes. “Time is at the mercy of the prospective of the observer in question.” He said, still dazed in thought, “The one experiencing that time sees things different than the one watching. Say that man over at the bar talking with the lady of the night.” He pointed over to what looked like a vagabond talking with a galled faced woman, “From his perspective, his coming to this bar is the past; while his courtship is the present.’ He laughed slightly, “What makes his future is what he thinks he will be doing with the lady later tonight.” The young scholar finished his half pint in one swallow, “But to us, who know not of how he got here, who could care less for what he is doing and who have other ideas of his nightly accommodations; we have a different view of his time. You see, without the proper information, we cannot make a correct time line. As which history itself is an incomplete and most likely incorrect string of pasts.” Not soon after the scholar passed out and I left the bar.
So, if I were to think about this in terms of myself, my past began on that carriage. Who is to say that all men are born, if history has so many inconsistencies. My present must be what I write as of now; and my future must be what I hope for to happen next. My prospect of a job; small yes, but the bounty high. I must commend that scholar, though, because of what he said I can now laugh at the irony of this current present and future set. My future, and his future are linked, but my future will continue and he will no longer experience the present.
In the end, I may never find an answer to the question that has been etched into my mind; but there is one thing that I do know now, I’ll always have a future as long as I take away others’ present.
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NNM
Raging insomniac powers activate!
