5/20/2006 - Bathroom Synchronicity and Other Unmentionables

So I just came back from the bathroom just now (coffee is a diuretic) and as I was sitting there not thinking about a whole lot in particular, I noticed a copy of Stephen Hawking's Brief History of Time was sitting next to me.

The pages had been opened to (in this particular edition) page 145 and I read the following:

"The increase of disorder or entropy with time is one example of what is called the arrow of time, something that distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time. There are at least three different arrows of time. First, there is the thermodynamic arrow of time, the direction of time in which disorder or entropy increases. Then, there is the psychological arrow of time. This is the direction in which we feel time passes, the direction in which we remember the past but not the future. Finally, there is the cosmological arrow of time. This is the direction of time in which the universe is expanding rather than contracting. "

I thought this was interesting, particularly because a few hours earlier I'd read a passage to Bjorn from one of the editorial collections I'm reading that struck me:

"Theology goes a long way toward imbuing substance and processes with meaning- describing life as "matter reaching toward divinity," or as the process by which divinity calls matter back to itself. But theologians mistakenly ascribe this sense of purpose to history rather than to the future. This is only natural, since the narrative structures we use to understand our world tend to have beginnings, middles, and ends. In order to experience the payoff at the end of the story, we need to see it as somehow built into the original intention of events.

It's also hard for people to contend with the likely possibility that we are simply overadvanced fungi and bacteria hurtling through the galaxy in cold, meaningless space. But just because our existence may have arisen unintentionally and without purpose doesn't preclude meaning or purpose from emerging as a result of our interaction and collaboration. Meaning may not be a pre-condition for humanity as much as a by-product of it.

It's important to recognize that evolution at its best is a team sport. As Darwin's later, lesser known but more important works contend, survival of the fittest is a law that applies mot as much to individuals as to groups. Likewise, most great leaps forward in human civilization, from the formation of clans to the building of cities, have been feats of collaborative effort. Increased survival rates are as much a happy side effect of good collaboration as its purpose.

If we could stop thinking of 'meaning' and 'purpose' as artifacts of some divine creative act and see them instead as the yield of our own creative future, they become goals, intentions, and processes very much in reach rather than the shadows of child-like, superstitious mythology."

- Douglas Rushkoff

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Anyway. I've been thinking about time manipulation a lot lately. The older I get the less strange it seems. Recurrent themes in the past few weeks:

the role of mythology in constructing our personal beliefs, purposes and journeys

the flexiblility of psychological time-space

the role and mechanisms of sex hormones in determining thought pattern frequencies (gotta look up studies on this... been interested in it for a while)

thinking about what words mean and then what words 'mean'. (e.g.- 'depressed' and 'history'... i am realizing that to be depressed does not equate feeling sad, nor does it need to be considered pathological... sometimes one merely feels 'pressed down and sluggish'.)

something I keep reading a lot lately, and that a few people have said to me in one way or another- and also something I have said to many people- Alexia said to me yeserday: "Life is a problem, that's all it is!" But she said it in such a joyous way. Like she couldn't wait to solve it. It made me realize that it's all about delivery, really. If you carry your cross like it's a feather it doesn't seem so burdensome anymore. If you learn to enjoy hiking you don't mind climbing that crazy mountain called life.

Hours and hours spent on the book. Sometimes a let a tear or two go reading writing. You people really touch my heart sometimes.