A changed conception of time

I would like to touch upon one of the fascinating and fundamental aspects of human life — time and its unending passage.

Some of what I have to say I may have written about before, but I hope this message is fresh and vital.

You may remember that several years ago I wrote that the more distant an event is in time, the more pathetically fleeting and melancholically evanescent I tend to view it. I used to become somewhat pessimistic and unsettled about time, because I would think things like, say, the happenings and life choices I made when I was a child were of no consequence in the present, and that similar events in the present would seem as short-lived and as insignificant when the future arrived.

I got to thinking about this matter a lot over the past few years, and I have come to the changed conclusion that because of the essential nature of the space-time continuum that contains our lives, it is entirely possible that all doings in our lives are naturally and immutably interconnected.

For example, if I had given in to Mom and worn short pants as a six-year-old, I could have attracted a child molester, which would have radically altered my emotional and mental health for a long time.

Also, if I had not entered a certain store in 1952, for example, where a man give me a dime for the movies, I might never have gotten to talking about the movie with a prospective wife who had also seen it.

And, if I had not happened to begin playing ball in Simms’ backyard when I was eight or nine years old, I might never have developed my great interest in baseball, and that would have had a major effect on how I lived my adult life in many respects.

So, I believe that we neglect at our peril the fact that the present, future and past are intrinsically interrelated, and we should think deeply about how this basis of human life inescapably shapes the nature of our world.

Lloyd Bonnell Corner Brook