Yesterday, when I opened my door, the air was thick and a warm wind blew. The temperature was so different from what it had been days before, that I decided to go running. The air felt tropical, dense, mid-summer-like, and a little ominous. I ran beside the river in a T-shirt in the middle of February.
I can't describe why it felt so weird, but even the smell of the air was strange. It was as if I had stepped forwards in time when I opened my door that day. All of a sudden, it was a early summer day in 2007. Benjamin once said that he believes if time travel were possible, you would only be able to go forward. Somehow, while I was running, those thoughts made sense. Maybe, it's impossible to go backwards, except in memory. Yet, here I was jogging through the thickness of future air. Now, to tell you the truth, it didn't feel all that different, except most people weren't wearing jackets at all; there were no space cars, holographic police officers, or any fancy, jumpsuit fashions — nothing you won't see in your own lifetime.
Perhaps, time travel is only possible in your mind, like you can project yourself forwards when you are seriously thinking about your own...um, for a lack of a better word: destiny. Like your thoughts leap into your own body momentarily to grasp at some understanding of where you will be in the future.
Not that I gained any knowledge of this little mental trip to the summer, but it did make me think about where I want to be in the near future. When I think about it now, all I see in my mind is the kaleidoscope of a light brown iris of an eye staring back at me. It looks as if I'm looking into the lens of a magnifying glass, staring directly at the top of a rocky mountain — except instead of a snowy white cap, there's a ebony pupil, reflecting strips of white light back at me.
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7 comments:
You're really plumbing the depths with this one.
I think I know what you mean with the last part.
I guess I was in a metaphorical mood. But the last part is such a clear image in my mind. Topographical, geographical, satellite map of someone's eye, complete with the cosmic beams reflecting off of it.
Ok lets get the ball rolling.
I just saw the movie "Primer" and my time travel interpretive world just grew legs like the first fish in the lineage of man.
hows that for a metaphor art losers?!
If you havent seen "Primer," thats ok. I would suggest seeing it, but I will share its main time travel principal. They create a machine, when sealed and filled with rayon it creates a time anomaly, where time is bent into an elipsees (sp?). Where time is sped up to a single point along the top ring, after reaching that point then time is flows around the bottom ring of the elipsees in reverse. Essentially facing foward through the past.
Also depending on the size of the machine. A small machine will create a small elipsees and so on.
How long something spends in the machine will determine whether or not its gone to the future, or whether its gotten out when it returns. So two characters figure out how long is the longest point, get out, then let the machine keep running, so it returns to the past, then the next time it returns to the future (their present) the hop on and get a ride back to before they started. Since the loop continues, its length slowly expands aswell. Without them saying it, I am sure it expands at the rate of golden ratio.
For instance, they can leave the machine in time to hide and see themselves enter it as they did a day ago.
hope I'm describing this well enough.
So yeah, I believe time travel is a one way street. Not unlike the theory of relativity, you can only forgo "time" and re-enter at a later "time." Since I believe what we call "time" to realy be an ever growing expansion of one state. Its evolution. Not revolution, but I'll touch upon that in a moment. You start from one point and there is growth but something can only grow in terms of time evolution, it cant retract. Meaning very simply, there is no past... only after effect of its causes and memory. It can slow (example people that seem to get everything in life and take advantage of every oppurtunity probably see life working slower and can interject easier) or it can even speed up, some people miss oppurtunities and life flies by doing nothing. So erin it could be about perspective. but those are just human examples of this evolution in play. to get back to mechanics... I clarify... you can only move forward in "time."
with that in mind, I've imagined something.
After seeing primer my belief of time travel wasnt challenged, I believe what I believe. BUT it did however open my eyes to an entirely new possibiliy.
Revolutions.
Now this will take a little flexibility, but hear me out. What if, not unlike the matrix where their world is set to a revolution schedule. Everytime it crashes it starts again. What if... the earth exists not unlike that. IT will progress and evolve to a point to where it ends, and then... resets.
So instead of simply growing from one point and ever expanding till it ends... it also revolutions. You could essentially travel back in time... but not by going backwards... rather, speed past everything, till it re-emerges as your time line and hop off at the point in the past you want. Aslong as you understand one very important principal, that the past is now the very very very very distant future.
Benjamin
Benjamin's comment was way too long for my attention span and it could as I was reading it I could feel the crisp and delicious melnacholy from your entry slipping away.
i think time travel i s possible in the way you describe it. While eating an apple i can move from my childhood to the future.
you are beautiful brother. i love you very much
j
Wow Benj!
Strangely, that makes sense.
Since the entry wasn't really about time travel at all, I feel like I have to explain my own idea.
For the most part, I tend to agree with Benjamin. You can never go back, because:
a.) Changing something in the past would cause too much trouble. I'm a firm believer that the universe is actually a remarkably simple thing and that temporal butt-fuckery is not in its vocabulary due to the level of complexity.
b.) The past is simultaneously happening with the present. Think of time is an expanding puddle. The present is the edge crawling forward, while the past is still existing at the same time. We are just not aware of it anymore.
If there was a way to go forward in time, I believe the best way to do it would be to jump your mind into the body of another being in the future. Elaborate machines, however intriguing, could not exist in a future that doesn't exist yet. I mean, the future is totally hypothetical, right? Unless you believe in destiny, and then what's the point in even time travelling at all?
Also the idea of revolutions is very cool. Sounds very much like time is breathing. Inhale, exhale...Cool idea. And again, I think I agree with that too.
Wow, time, it always gets the brain working. Personally I believe that time is a concept, a human construct that is an illusion. we are all like rocks protruding out of a river. time is the water rushing past us but we remain in the same spot. It is only our experience of time that is unique but time itself is illusory.
But, according to the theory of relativity, a beings experience of time is affected by "gravity" or space time curvature. Two twins, born at the same time, one staying in the same place his whole life and the other flying around the world on business, will be different ages. The twin who's flying is less affected by "gravity" (or spacetime curvature) and will be younger.
I think it's amazing that when we look into the sky at night we're seeing the past. The light from the stars we see takes thousands of lightyears to reach the earth and many of them may have gone supernova a long time ago.
Even the sun could have blown up and we wouldn't know about it for 14 minutes, the time it takes the light of the sun to reach us. Crazy.
Benj,
I love your ambiguity. booyah! i:ll have to reread it. i am ironically out of time on this machine. chinkies!
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