In the distant future, humanity has managed to master time, gaining the ability to traverse it. The river of time – once thought to be a stream flowing in one direction – is now known to loop, twist, and turn back into itself. In this future world, time’s domestication gave way to its commoditization; humans discuss time the way they once discussed travel – it is no longer where you traveled to, but when. And in a world where time takes this form, the search for humanity’s meaning has grown infinitely more complex.
Somewhere in this vast time-scape, a journal belonging to an unknown traveler rests on a desk waiting to be discovered. The traveler spent their childhood in the future, adulthood in the past, and elderly years in the present, and spent ample time grappling with the idea of humanity in the context of their world. The journal is the legacy of a life spent among past, present, and future – its thoughts originally only known by its author. But in infinite time, discoveries are bound to be made; for when the span of time is unbound, everything is in perpetual change somewhere – sometime. And in this span of infinite time, another human has finally found the journal and gazed at its cover. The discoverer gently wipes the dust off the journal and begins reading.
On the Passage of Time
Our ancestors once feared the passage of time. Their fear was a consequence of an uncertain future, for the risk of time used to rest in its historical composition: it strictly flowed forward, never back. When our predecessors were young, they were fearful of making decisions that would lead them down the wrong temporal path. For humans incapable of traversing time, there are moments in their lives that will undoubtedly impact their journey forward. Indeed, because they are unable to alter decisions they once made, the risk of making the wrong decision – at a pivotal moment – awakens the deepest part of their humanity. Risk places stress on us humans, stimulating the deepest part of our senses. And there is no greater risk to us than a wasted life.
Many humans today hold that there is no such thing as a wasted life – most of us obtain the futures we aspire for. But is the future we get truly the ideal one? Is our mastery of time a blessing, or a curse?
Perhaps life takes on more meaning if time only moves forward. Every interaction is unique. Every decision carries more weight. Every experience is only had once. The novelty of a new experience, the stress of an important decision, the birth of new love – these things do not carry the same significance if one consistently tampers with them – if one consistently experiences them. Many humans today elect to revisit the past, pushing themselves down the temporal path that leads to their ideal future. But in that process, they eliminate the most rewarding aspects of life. In that process, the risk of being human evaporates, and a life devoid of risk is a life devoid of knowledge. In that process, one sacrifices their humanity for a future that is certain, but they eliminate the pieces that make life worth living: the stimulation of our senses, thoughts, and sense of self. Maybe our ancestors had a greater understanding of what it meant to be human than we do now. But I will never be able to experience such a life because I can no longer separate cause from effect in my own temporal path. This is the consequence of tampering with the flow of time.
On Reminiscing and Bifurcations
Our ancestors used to partake in the act of reminiscing. Reminiscing once stirred a mixture of emotions in humans. Affection for a life once lived; joy over friendships experienced; fondness for hopes, dreams, and aspirations once held; pain for failing to achieve those dreams, for friendships lost, for one’s inability to relive a certain period of their life. Indeed, reminiscing was an attempt to recover lost time. Our ancestors were passive observers of their own past, watching the same events unfold in perpetuity, longing for the ability to experience them again, and perhaps change the course of events. But the impossibility of such an outcome is what kept them reminiscing – captive to their own desire for change, they longed for what they could not have. And changing the past, they could not have.
But this is not true for humans today. The act of reminiscing is nonsensical because we can visit previous points in time, yet we are not the same person when we revisit points in time that have previously unfolded – our bodies, minds, and spirits have aged. In essence, we cannot truly relive the origin of these moments, but we can personally watch those past moments unfold and strive to recover the feelings invoked by the experience. For those of us who remain strong enough to refuse tampering with their own temporal path, this is analogous to the act of reminiscing. Such travelers are passive observers of their own past, much like humans before them. Other travelers revisit past moments with the intention of passively observing them, only to end up tampering with their own flow of time. I have seen several fateful moments occur whereby a traveler is here one moment and gone the next. The act of altering their past modified the temporal path of their previous self, leading to the impossibility of their own existence.
This exemplifies how impactful a singular moment can be on the human psyche. The travelers who alter their past actions still feel the pain of the current moment; the act of witnessing it once again simply intensifies the burn. These travelers suspend reasoning for a brief moment in an attempt to alleviate their own grief by guiding themselves in a different direction. And after that moment, they fade out of existence.
Such a statement is contradictory, however. They no longer exist because time deemed their present existence an impossibility. Consequently, did they ever really exist? Or did I happen to proceed along a branch of time that bifurcated from the branch I once belonged to? Was their future inextricably linked to my own? Under this context, they must have existed in some form…
On Loops
We all experience moments in our lives where our humanity is at its most pronounced. An inner awakening occurs where we realize we are more than flesh and blood. Our ability to see, hear, empathize, and think, unite into one precise moment when we cannot ignore the manifestation of our own identity. This clarity in thought enables one to become intimately familiar with their inner machinations, and through an extreme exercise in empathy, also experience paths traveled by humans other than their self. It is in this moment, the same moment where one’s identity cannot be ignored, that it is swallowed by the vastness of the collective human experience. When the mind stops racing, peacefulness rests in those who embarked upon this inner journey. The birth of our most intense perception of self gives way to its own demise – the inception of our understanding of what it means to be truly human. A beginning to an end, an end into a new beginning. The creation of the loop.
The loop is the paradox of our domestication of time – what does it mean to begin? To end? These were arbitrary terms developed by humans who believed events could only happen in succession. But as we have come to learn, the cause of one event can be the effect of another, and the effect of the latter event the cause of the event that came before it. I have seen wars fought over disputes that were yet to happen – did the war cause the dispute, or the dispute the war? I have seen humans lose their livelihoods over changes in personality – again, which came first? In non-linear time, beginning and end, cause and effect, are no longer obvious.
Indeed, the journal you are reading now only exists because it was given to me by a traveler who found it on my desk at a time unknown to myself. Its teachings will help me navigate this world, enabling me to learn the lessons needed to document these meditations myself, in the same manner my future self once did. And eventually, I must leave it on my desk, waiting to be discovered, so that I can receive it once again. Failing to do so ensures my own impossibility: I would become an orphan of time.
…
The discoverer closes the journal and stows it in their knapsack. They exit the room and step into the river of time, embarking on a mission to deliver the journal to the person who will write it.
What does it mean to begin? To end?
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Matthew Gallagher
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