Time
As relating to the conversation on Peaks Island September 26th 2009.
Recap as remembered on this day the 27th of 2009:
Discussions as to weather time is something we can experiences with out justifying it off past experiences.
It is then proposed that longing is a form of looking into the future.
Thoughts also revolved around whether or not time is solely a human construct.
Comment to continue discussion.
From what i remember and from what i am responding to now, i would say again that, yes, time is something we can experience withOUT justifying it off the past. However, we BEST experience the present by justifying it off the past – by having a memory, by not forgetting – by being aware of any experience at any time (past present or imagined future) which relates to the current state of time.
This gets into the topic of best practices. That said, is there a best way to do or experience anything? I strongly believe there is a best way to have experiences based on making good decisions which take into account all facets of time and acknowledging its effect on all experiences.
To comment on longing. Longing, i believe, can happen both into the future and into the past. it can expand in all directions and is always impacting our present. Nostalgia is so powerful that it can change how people dress, what might be best in relation to individual memories. Desire might be the opposite spectrum of nostalgia although both are very similar and maybe the only difference is one is projected into the past and the other into the future but another thought is desire might just be one facet of nostalgia.
If nostalgia is desire for the past what is a desire for the future called?
Jessica George
September 27, 2009 at 2:59 pm
I would agree with the notion that time can be experienced withOUT justifying it off the past. however I do also believe that these moments by nature are extremely fleeting, almost blank moments, based solely in experiencing something. there nature is one of such fleeting evasiveness due to realization. once we realize we are something, we loose track of the edge with witch we were perceive it. in my understanding this is where the past (as in past experiences) comes into play. we understand (or rationalize?) based on what has been, we are looking for ways of creating meaning, it is habit and or nature to draw on what one has already navigated.
I do question what the space of being without history is?
I also find the edge where becoming is a-historic to be something i will contemplate. the notion reminds me of my new interest in hitting. hitting with experiments/experance, in a fashion that allows one to decide how and what works on a scale that is fast enough to allow one to live and work closer to the present with a much thinner dip into history.
Best or worse is a mater of experiences and or perception. i do not think i can cast judgment on something with out first understanding it on some level, thus drawing on my experience and or past. good is good only because your experiences deem it just. not taking the time to see that there are complex ecosystems behind all situations is in my eyes the only bad.
if nostalgia is desire for the past what is a desire for the future called?
is it called dreaming? or prediction, anticipation? i also am sot sure nostalgia is purely desire for the past. it could just be a remembering of the past. just and act? capable of its own set of complex emotions. like desire.
Cole
September 27, 2009 at 7:39 pm
think about the phrase out of time…. it means there is no more time left…. it also means we are outside of time… outside of a time that we separated into its own set—…. the other day I was worried that I was in the wrong place in time…. that somehow I should be somewhere other there where i was…. and so we entered into a discussion about how it is that we understand where we are…. we don’t necessarily have to include time in that question… but since we are always in time we should include time, keep it there, for now. Cole argued that we apply the past to the present and the future, saying how could we not— that is what we know. But I would like to argue that our relationship to time and our relationship to the past is always changing…… the way we remember or what we remember or that we don’t remember tells us something about where we are. Turn and look out window. We have seen this vista before but it also just now becoming…. we understand that it will be there tomorrow…. and that it was there yesterday… but right now as we three look out we are engaged in becoming…. its blue, its brilliant, it glimmers……. there is inside me a combining in time with the vista, with you in the room….. it is being and absolutely on the verge of being that we are living, memories – my own, those of our ancestors- are generated in the same spontaneous way as is now my sense of the blue through the window. “The world is a force, not a presence” Wallace Stevens…… to be continued
Molly
September 30, 2009 at 2:35 am
i am tempted to say that is is o.k. to be out of time if one is only accountable for ones self. if one is accountable to others (which seems impossible to be unaccountable in my mind)(one would have to not care about anything to be unaccountable) then one must be concerned about being in time.
This all makes me vividly think of music. of harmonizing. of the different ways to play – one can learn to feel or one can learn to be directed. it is feeling from the inside and being directed from the outside. using both of these ways of playing one would be ensured a perfect place in time. out of step, missing direction, loosing a feeling, one has a harder time being in time with others.
How do you stay in time?
Is is easier to stay in time when one is alone? is not more beautiful music constructed with others?
I recall learning how to play the clarinet in a band. This was much different than learning how to play the piano. as there were actual other people relying on my sense of time. with the piano, one simply accompanies oneself. you learn how to play with both hands a single graph of bass and treble lines. if one hand is out of time with the other only you must wait for the one hand to catch up. this would take an acute practice of one part. if one could not master the part, one could change what they were playing, without effecting/affecting another. In a band, playing the clarinet, others were counting on me to play in time, and i could not change the tune if i couldn’t get my timing right.
this all applies if one believes in Playing anything… !
Jessica George
September 30, 2009 at 5:42 pm