Tag: past

Personal Windows

Friends, prompted by curious, started grilling me about some of my past life the other night. Those were my super-secret military days.

Since their questioning, I’ve drifted along currents of wonder about living amidst change and how small our windows of knowledge truly seem. Change is fast and constant. The military commands I worked in thirty years ago no longer exist; the weapons systems introduced during my career are being retired. Bases have been shuttered. They’re trying to retire the nukes I once controlled (a good thing, in my mind). God knows what’s going on in space.

I ended up in a medical start-up after my military career, first in sales operations, running customer service and spewing out reports about sales trends. We were part of a nascent business, per-cutaneous transvascular coronary angioplasty, moving into stent delivering systems for coronary applications and radiation therapy to cope with re-stenosis. After that, I moved on to another company in search of ways to cope with chronic total occlusions.

Life found me in Internet and computer security in my next phase, and then onto analytics. Whatever. I drifted through choices, jumping through windows when the opportunities arose, and was fortunate to have someone on the other side of those windows to pull me in and show me around.

The windows in our lives are always so small. They open and close so quickly. Technology accelerates the speed with which the windows open and close. For examples, consider how we now conduct war versus how it was conducted in decades and centuries past. Consider how we make, experience and enjoy music, and how we entertain ourselves. Yet, each window and moment is treated as though this is a permanent solution. Consider the plight of the coal industry, for example. They think it can be legislated back but technology and market forces have moved past them.

We, as humans, can only see and understand so far, and we argue and debate about what we see, what it means and what we need to do about it. Yet, each person’s life is defined by their personal windows. These are shaped by their culture, heritage, education, genetics and personal experiences, yes, but they’re also shaped by much larger forces. We often barely glimpse the shadow of such forces.

Sometimes – no, hell, often – I think we’re going around understanding the world backward; we believe reality shapes us, and we investigate how we shape it.

Maybe we shape reality. Maybe there is no past or future, there is only the window into Now.

Jump through it and keep on going.

 

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The Now

“What is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain, I do not know. … My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma.”

I hear you, Augustine.

Writing science fiction that involves thinking about now, the past and present, and the various theories attempting to unify and explain everything, I ended up standing my thoughts on their head: instead of believing the past exists and the future is the potential outgrowth of the past, only now exists. We create now as it happens; without us to establish order to existence and reality, there isn’t any existence and reality, except that which we know now.

Yet, in creating now, we begin creating echoes of now that drift toward the past, creating a past. We believe, therefore, it was, ha-ha. As we conceive of structure to explain what’s going on, we’re creating what’s going on, establishing it as something more substantial, as it were with the laws and rules that we believe to be immutable. As others theorize, it’s our limitations and practices that actually establishes our expectation of how time flows, and causality paradoxes.

Yes, I know, this smacks of Sartre’s POV regarding essence and existence and others’ existentialist thinking. I get a kick out of running it through my mind’s treadmills, taking it back to its ultimate point: in the beginning, there was one. The one thought of others, and the others came to be in the moment called now, and that first one was called God.

God never liked the name God, and used multiple other names as he, she, and it did the same thing with other races, species, places, times and realities, becoming the first each time, and then creating a new now from which others created a past. It was natural he/she/it would become associated with the Trickster and the Mischief Maker.

Of course, just like the Big Bang Theory of how our Universe came to be leaves us wondering, what was there before the Big Bang, we always ask, what was there before the one called God?

He/she/it always answered, “I was always energy. Then, I thought, I think, therefore I am.” Others claimed they thought of it first, and phrased it a little differently. God knew better but wasn’t worried about gaining credit. He/she/it knew that fame was as fleeting as now, as certain as the past, and as secure as the future. And yet, he/she/it knew it was a fragile response, because if he/she/it was energy back then, that’s still something, and if he/she/it is right about being the first, then where did that energy originate from which he/she/it came to be?

Ah, there’s the rub. He/she/it likes to think of themself as a nested existence, beginning with nothing, and conceiving of themself as the first particle and then doubling up until he/she/it achieved sufficient energy to perceive themself, but he/she/it stews over such an answer as much as Augustine stewed over defining time.

All this thinking about physics and now isn’t new; others have come up with various structures of a Now Hypothesis, and are attempting to prove their hypothesis. For me, it’s all just a nice little fun diversion from the serious business of novel writing.

That’s all, for now.

 

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Flying into Egypt

I was served a rack of what the hell dreams last night and awoke confused.

The most sharply remembered dream had me in a small airport terminal. I was well dressed and very happy, wandering about the small building and its small rooms, flirting with woman and awaiting my flight. It came shortly later. Nothing significant from the flight took place until deplaning. Then I realized I was in an airport in Egypt. I’d flown over some terrible sights, looking down and seeing wasteland.

My pilot was Egyptian so I passed sympathetic comments on to him. He seemed little interested and accepted the comments with brusque impatience before going on to his business between flights. Which, in retrospect, made sense. He’s a pilot, with things to do and little time.

I needed to await my next flight. I spoke with others about what I’d seen. They also seemed little interested. A few were confused. I had no pants on and was naked from the waist down, further confusing them. Having my pants off was part of my plan, I assured them again and again, smiling and showing them my pants in my hand.

Meanwhile, a beautiful dark-haired women who seemed Italian was present. She intrigued me because she was in a red Ferrari racing suit. I finally struck up a conversation with her, asking why she was wearing a Ferrari racing suit. She seemed secretive, furtive but flirtatious, and was coy about telling me. This began a series in which people talked to me about what I saw as I flew into Egypt alternating with her and I teasing one another about why she was wearing a Ferrari racing suit.

It was close to departure time. I put my pants on. The beautiful woman beckoned me to her. We squatted down. Leaning in with a glance around to see no one else was there, she indicated her suit and said, “This is for the future.”

I was confused. “That’s a future racing suit for Ferrari?”

Widely smiling, she nodded. “Yes, yes, it’s for the future. It’s very special. I’m testing it.”

Before I could properly respond, she lifted up a bag and pulled out another racing suit. Yellow, this one was for the Jordan racing team. Jordan has been out of racing for a decade plus.

“This one, too,” she said. “It’s for the future.”

I was now greatly confused. There wasn’t time for further conversation as my flight was called.

And then I was off the aircraft and in a new terminal in America, with an unspecified friend. We were leaving the airport and discussing how to leave. One of us wanted to get a car or taxi; the other wanted to walk out to the gate and catch a ride there, or keep walking.

In retrospect, I think the friend may have been me, and I was both entities. If so, that begins to make some sense, moving the dream out of the ‘what-the-hell’ category and into the ‘huh’ realm. It’s into the ‘huh’ category because it has some sketchy sense – future and past, and confused, indecisive directions and courses. With Jordan and Ferrari Formula 1, some elements of highly advanced technology and cutting edge performance is referenced. I don’t understand its context completely. More thinking is needed.

And Egypt? I’m baffled. I’ve only been to Egypt a few times, strictly on military business, traveling on military aircraft.

I don’t know why I flew in and out of Egypt in my dreams.

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Not Always Quick

I’m not always a quick thinker. Otherwise, I would have answers today.

It’s about a dream. Yeah. I should have asked myself, why are you dreaming this? I don’t recall ever featuring pigs in a dream before.

I was feeding a pig. He was a shiny little pink porker. He came downstairs in my house, a very happy and excited little creature. I had company. Friends were visiting. I didn’t want the pig downstairs. So I called him and led him back upstairs.

It was messy upstairs. It seems like we were in a transition. My intention was to feed the pig some cornflakes. He found some on the floor and gobbled them up, but he wanted more. I thought he spotted more but they  turned out to be scraps of paper. He didn’t want to eat those. As I searched for corn flakes to feed him, another pig, slightly larger but equally pink and shiny, emerged, along with a few cats. So I talked to them, telling them I was looking for food and was going to feed them, even as I couldn’t find the food that I expected. I headed downstairs to find some.

I had company, three former co-workers from a flying unit. Laying on sofas, they were watching television and playing games while they chatted to me and my wife. I was annoyed because they had disconnected the best television and were employing old cathode ray televisions on carts. I set about fixing that.

Meanwhile, another friend from the same unit showed up. I asked him what he thought of his new position. He replied, “This is what war sounds like.” Then, using a gallon paint can, he made a metallic rumbling noise that was loud and unpleasant. “All the time,” he said.

Others, less known but known, showed up. Setting up tables, they sat down to prepare food to feed me. I was embarrassed and grateful for their efforts, but I kept trying to tell them that it wasn’t necessary. They ignored me, continuing to cook.

Pigs…confusion…identity. It’s something to research and think about today, since I didn’t bother to ask myself for clarification when it was happening. I’ll need to think quicker next time.

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Drop That Now

Ready? Here we go.

Up worried about a sick cat. Naturally, that led me to think about time, space and reality.

I was thinking about Now. Now equals Reality for us.

But, I thought, Now does not equal Present. Now is a subset of the Present * Past * Future formula created by common agreement, which forms Reality.

Weirdly, though, as a group (referring only to the subset called humans, and only those ‘presently’ ‘alive’, to keep this simple), we approach Reality in accordance with Zeno’s paradox. Essentially, we’re all traveling toward the same moment, at the same speed (in theory), but we’re coming at it from different distances, because Now = Present * Past * Future. Which means, Now is constantly being reshaped by us as individuals, because we’re always shaping the Present, Past and Future.

Here’s an example for clarification.

You have a friend who is close to you. In a moment of Now, you remember the Past and create a Present by fantasizing a different Future for the two of you, one in which something changed. Perhaps you were close friends and in your fantasy, you’re now lovers. Maybe you were lovers but that ended badly so in your fantasy, you remain close friends and never ruined it by become sexually entangled.

That fantasy, of thinking of a different Past and imagining a different resulting Future, created a new Present. That Present spun off onto its own, to create another Now.

But –

Yeah, there’s always a but. The but here is that a new you exist in that new Now. Yet that new you is also your current, past, present and future you. You are all yous.

In that new Now, you think of your Present circumstances (the moment of Now), and the Past (that you created) to imagine a new Future, which becomes another Present, establishing another New. The ability to ‘hold it together’ mentally is keeping true to one Now, or being adept enough to juggle Nows so that their changing doesn’t disturb you. Most of us struggle with it, because it causes us imbalances from the “That’s not how I remember it,” syndrome, and the unglueing that springs up thinking of all of us Now. You’re remembering different Presents that happen to intersect into one Now, but the Now wasn’t exactly the same for everyone, because of Zeno’s Paradox.

As a fun exercise, imagine Now = Pr (Present) * Pa (Past) * Fu (Future). But Now creates a new Pr. Which means, by our formula, Now has changed, also changing Pa and Fu, establishing a new Pr and a new Now. And essentially, each of these Now is a string connecting us. Conceive of all the strings together and we grasp what it means to be the universe. But that’s only from the current, living aspect of humans, because, since we can imagine and re-imagine new existences, death isn’t a permanent state at all, but only a ‘natural extension’ of one Now.

Yeah, this is all old, the multiverse concepts of ‘everything that can happen, has happened’, with the added dimension that everything that can be remembered (or mis-remembered) can be re-imagined to add to more universes.

Of course, the other kicker is that true constants don’t exist. Time travels only in one direction in our Now, even though we act on it on another level to create other Nows (see above) and the Past is considered immutable (in our Now). Physical dimensions such as agreement on Length and Width also vary by Now, which, of course, are defined by Past * Present * Future. So, too, are constants such as the speed of Light (c) and the Theory of Relativity. They are not constants but agreed upon acceptances of what is Now, for this system of mass and energy which is Now. Quantum Mechanics are actually glimpses into the real state of being, where we begin to see how time, light and gravity act in ways counter to our Now. It is, actually, much more relative than we realize. I’m sure there are brilliant physicists out there that an explain it all a hell of a lot better, and probably have.

That’s all for Now.

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Reminding Me of You

A white Jeep flipped a bitch, your expression, and it came to me because that of that time you were pulling out and that Jeep did a U turn and hit you, and then tried blaming you. That’s how it was going for you, then. Your poor grey Bimmer was totaled when it flipped on 101 on the home commute after hitting a piece of wood in the lane, but the insurance company didn’t believe you. But they couldn’t explain why your car flipped, either.

‘Round and Round’ came on, and I thought of you, your face lighting up as you lunged for the boom box and cranked it up as you said, “Oh, my God, that’s my tune.” Then you played air guitar and sang.

I think of you whenever I see an Atlanta Braves uniform or hat. You’re gone and the players you cheered have retired but you bled the colors. And you’re there when the Packers play, even though Favre moved on to the other teams and the HoF.

Every time I stop to look at a new program, I think of you, because you were the first one to ever point out to me all the little things, encouraging me to not be afraid and just click on things to see what happens. You come to me in a whiff of Pall Malls and Marlboros, in a sweaty white Miller can, and in the taste of bad, burnt black coffee in small paper cups. I see you when I cut open a watermelon and gaze at the rows of black seeds in the glistening sweet flesh and when I hear a fighter jet split the overhead air. You emerge when someone speeds by, talking on their cell phone, because I can hear you spit, “Slow down, fucker, and get off your phone and drive.”

Van Halen’s ‘Jamie’s Crying’ comes on, and you pop out, because you were dating that young woman, Jamie, and ended up marrying her. We were all at the club one night and started singing it to her, and she started crying, asking us, “Why are you doing that?” She was drunk, we all were, and you and she went into the dark corner and talked and kissed. You’re in the taste of a well grilled cheeseburger because nobody made them like you, no one ever in my life, and you’re there when I think about making pancakes or get out of the car and stretch and look around at a highway rest stop. You’re there in the blue sky over the ocean and in the whispering, salty sea breeze, brushing your hair from your face and urging me to move over so you can take a picture.

You all come to me, individuals caught in the wad of bubblegum that is me, individuals contributing to my sum total, from your moments and points, trying to stretch away but always mired in the pink strain of memories.

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178

One seven eight may be my new favorite number. This is a fickle thing so, maybe not. I’ll test it.

Five was my favorite number for the longest time. The problem with five is that it’s a simple prime number, and just one digit. Nothing to add. No other ways of looking at it. I do appreciate and respect that it shows up EVERYWHERE – five toes, five fingers, the Fab Five, five rings, five senses, you can create the list. Five has served me well.

But 178, that’s a number you can play with. First, 1 + 7 = 8. Isn’t that cool? Then 1 + 7 + 8 = 16; 1 + 6 = 7. Neat, right? Or is it just me?

It could be just me. I dreamed of 178 last night, part of a long, rambling dream (like this post, but in color) about delivering a wheeled case for an old man. He was in charge of a place and was wheeling it along, but he was old and the black case was large, and I was there and bored, so I offered to help him. He made some snarky retort and then told me to take it to 178.

Off I went, through a door. I picked up my wife as an assistant, but once through that door, we discovered we were in an airport. Announcements were echoing, people rushing along, as they do in airports during peak travel hours. The place was gray cement and full of ramps, so the sound traveled unabated. White signs with numbers in red were overhead. Where was 178? My wife took off, thinking she knew the way, but I went in a different direction.

Arriving at 178 shortly, essentially an alcove, I found an old white refrigerator. Somehow, I knew I was to unpack the black case. Opening the refrigerator, I found it loaded with cheese. Cheese wheels, sticks, slices. White, yellow, blue. Opening the case to unload it, I discovered more yellow cheese, sliced, in packages. Insufficient room was in the frig for the new cheese, so I re-arranged the cheese to make room and add the new cheese.

“Cheese,” I was telling myself in the dream. “What’s with all the cheese?” I was baffled.

Finishing that and looking around, I realized that I was in someplace from my military career. And somewhere around there had been a locker where I’d kept personal items and military gear. I just needed to find it. It was locker 178.

I walked around, orienting myself and searching, moving through a maze of military green and gray doors and walls, past military members, along cinder block walls with exposed pipes. As I went and remembered, I told myself I was close. It had been locked, I remembered — but I had the key. Yes, the small key remained on my key chain.

It was my real and current key chain, just the house and mail key, but now with the key to to lock to my old storage locker (a locker that never actually existed, except in other dreams).

I finally located where the locker used to be, but guess what? It was gone, replaced by a Base Exchange facility where new uniform clothes were racked. No sign of me or my life there existed.

I looked up 178 this morning, and found that when it’s reduced to 7, it’s a mystical number, the number of cycles, of beginning again.

Yes, I had begun again, a new life, life after the military, life after Silicon Valley start-ups, life after IBM. And I’d been feeling that sense of renewal the last several days, like a song playing through my head, or a lingering perfume after a tight embrace.

I like that, although my explanation for the cheese is rather lame: the cheese represents food for thought.

Yeah.

Don’t know if that’s true. But one good thing I take from it all is that I didn’t wake up a zombie. That has to count for something.

Of course, thinking of that, I immediately begin conceptualizing a story about people who are zombies in their dream – and what happens in their real life.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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