But ‘now’ is a vague concept indeed, definable only as a
vaguely delineated span of endless flow. My current now is sitting in a room
typing this. But having typed that last sentence, it’s become history, a
concept translated through the artifice of language and cemented into an endless
past – or at least the notion of a past – there to be available in replay mode
only to anybody who reads it. And what of those who do read it? What of their
now?
This could go on and on. It’s all about time, of course. Time
decrees that there should be no ‘now’ because it refuses to stop. And if we
could stop time, we would then exist in the space between the nanoseconds
without dimensionality and floating in an infinite space of nothingness. That’s
a strange concept of existence, isn’t it? (Although at least we might come close to
discovering what consciousness is, I suppose.)
Or so it would seem. Maybe I should study Zen. Or maybe I
should bore myself rigid reading the words of all the philosophers and all the
quantum scientists. Maybe I would get angry and consumed with self-hate for not
being intelligent enough to grasp the complexities. That’s the state I usually
come to when I read the words of philosophers and quantum scientists. Maybe I
should post this and forget it, preferring instead to look forward to a cold beer
in a couple of hours' time. (That’s if my current presumption about the future
turns out to be accurate. In this context, ‘current’ is synonymous with ‘now.’
Oh dear. What a troublesome thing the nature of meaning is.)
So what brought this on? Reading an old story of mine, one
rooted in several episodes of my own past. It was mainly about a ship, and now I
see lots of NOWs floating backwards on its creamy wake. Irony upon irony.
Interesting things, stories. They’re full of mischievous
imps which jump out and torment you with troublesome thoughts. Onward?
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