Timelessness

Timelessness

Samuel Bird

“It hit Samuel.” “What did?” “That thing you told me about, I just realized it.” “I am sorry, you will have to be more specific.” “When I was back there... in that situation, you told me that if I could muster the strength to get out of this, one day I would realize why I wanted to.” “I said that? Well, that seems like a good point.” “Now that I am able to not be there anymore, I am able to see that I really didn’t want to be. That was so painful and damning. Looking back, my beliefs were hurting me.” “Not all beliefs are conducive to the soul and its flourishing.” “I feel so dumb, so stupid, and even physically ill. I feel like I may vomit.” “Ride it out, be present with it. This is the wisdom of your soul to build up a tolerance and yet an avoidance to make sure you never do this again.” “I still just feel like such a fool for making that such a large part of my life. How could I believe in something so bad for my soul and so dangerous?” “Be fair to yourself. You saw the outcomes, but in that moment there was always a story of context for why that was okay. The life denial, the misery, the inconsistencies, made so much sense in that moment. However, you made the wise choice to make the next series of moments different enough from the last, so you could step outside of the arbitrary and unknowable. You stepped outside of that moment to see it from another. The rich context of your new “now” brings greater wisdom and value. However, it would be unfair for you to be at blame for the outcomes you didn’t know.” “And what do I do now? If I made this mistake this way, should I go violently in the other direction?” “You could, but you don’t have to. You have today’s moments and even tomorrow’s to find a new place to stand to see your past. Whatever you decide, take honor in how much you engaged with that place you were in, when it was all you knew.” “I feel like it is crushing me, Samuel. I have been through hell, and I am not sure I came out the other side with all of myself.” “To know a hero, watch their adventure. What are you doing now?” “I am trying my best, but I don’t know where to start. I know I need something to believe in, but I feel so foolish trying. I opened the bible for the first time and found a verse. Can I share it with you?” “Go ahead.” “It is Micah chapter seven verse eight. It says “Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light." “And what about it makes it worth the sharing?” “Well, I have certainly fallen. I certainly feel I am sitting in darkness. What is helpful to feel is that there is a light to bask in somewhere. There is a place, an idea, a hope that is more than this and I could see just a fraction of.” “Ah, you are saying that there is a moment after this one that you think will be different than the one before?” “Yes.” “To the past, we have to be aware of its context, to the present, it’s context, and finally the future, guess what we need to make sense of it?” “The context?” “That is right. The tricky part is that we can only get the full context of one, from facts of the others. It is difficult to not feel our ever present “nows” are not “forevers.” The heavy context that hangs over our head will change and the day will come that the certainties of our moment fade away from view.” “So what do I do to make sense of my life Samuel?” “You don’t have all you need yet. Take this days wisdom but be hungry for tomorrow’s, all while mining the past in memory.” “What if I make a mistake? I feel I have been given a chance to start new.” “I will be honest, your were tortured in the fullest sense by what happened to you. I don’t think we will ever forget that context, but our new context will shed new redemptive light to it and to ourselves. I want you to write something down.” “Go ahead.” “It matters less how or what you do it, and more that you do it.” “And if I make a mistake?” “The new day's context will shed that light and give you that chance. It goes back to that verse you shared. The opportunity comes, as well as the knowledge.” “I think I can go on and live a good life, but I don’t think I will ever escape this context you are talking about. I will always live in the shadow of this horror.” “You will, but I have another thing for you to write down.” “Go ahead.” “This has cost me so much, but it is a small price to pay, to be who I am.” She began to cry and shake as the relief came from that which was oppressing her soul. “I am proud of you. You haven’t solved all the secrets of the universe, but you have easily done today’s portion of doing so. Now, you are cold. You better go inside.”

I wish I could tell you about my friend and how brave she was. She is a true hero in my eyes. She will never tout the banner of conquest into the enemy capital, but she suffered in a way so close to her soul and for so many years. I was there at the beginning of the end. I told her the blood on her shirt was not right and something to refuse it’s cause. For this angel taught to hate itself, it was an affront to all she knew, for me to point out such. Surely Samuel just didn’t know what he was talking about. Samuel was missing the rich context of memories, fear, and circumstances that made the blade’s edge worth its carving. How could he say such a thing? My goal with her was to help her understand time. I wanted her to step outside of her moment. Could she recall the time before her immediate and ever-present horrors? Why didn’t the horrors have to exist then? The context she had for excusing them, why was it not there then? Then, was there any necessary reason the horrors had to continue? Could we imagine a new moment years from now where the context that excused these horrors was gone and she was safe? I know that I could not save her soul by saving her body. I have learned that coming in with my fists and fury does some to damage the source of the horrors, but not her psychological pull toward the horrors. She needed to see times free from the horrors context. She needed what I call, “timelessness.” While she can never exist outside of a perceptual instance, she can attempt to do so and in the effort find great wisdom. I am in the year two thousand and twenty-five at writing this and can be nowhere else, right now. However, I can take yesterday’s context, tomorrows trajectory of such, and make sense of my nows. The human mind is designed to measure dynamic facts, not static facts. Furthermore, it struggles to measure the facts that occur and change too gradually. I have become talented at catching fish with my hands by creeping my hands closer than they can cognitize, before striking the last inch or so faster than they can swim. For this reason, history can march forward with facts and contexts mounting and compiling and us just taking such as prima facia. To my sorrow, this makes the human mind easy to oppress. You can’t recall all small facts like the ratio of prices of food to labor, what freedoms you had, or what social opportunities were available. For this reason, we can have lives that change drastically from our values in just a few generations. While it is conspiracy to say this is deliberate, it is a fact to say that it occurs. If we were blank slates who could be socialized into anything as everything is relative, this would be fine. However, we are one sort of thing that has our values. As I will talk on later, we need a something to do, some way to do it, a place to stay, resources, people to do it with, and a belief to do it all for. We can adapt and even flourish to varying degrees in a variety of circumstances. However, we are a given variable that engages with the world. We still have values extreme enough to cause our death if they are not recieved. This is where a great wisdom can come in that allows us to not be pushed to and fro by the whims of modernity. We can see out of our age. 

I was a strange child to say the least. Something of a character must be a given, as my essence was made manifest when I was very young. Despite living in the city and only moving to the country later and with no examples, I was obsessed with dressing like a cowboy. Part of it was the mythos and masculinity, but it was more than that. I detested my age from being a little child. I was never taught to or commanded such. My parents were emblematic of their generation and my grandparents more so. Where did this come from? It was more than just looking at the past and wanting to go back. I understood game theory as a child and knew the “advancements” made would never allow a lazy retreat. It was more than that, I loved to see out of my age. I was tired of fads and popular culture as one’s entire life could become cheap and ugly in one generation. I loved cowboy music until I became a little older and discovered rock and roll music. I became obsessed and wanted to emulate by learning the guitar. The interesting part about this was this music was well before my age. With the short and shorter cycles of change, that music was long a past fad and the musicians were largely dead. Yet, I loved it. Of course, my first love was philosophy, but as I began to have resources to stuff into my voracious mind, there were other interests. I loved the study of science, though it made me heavily critical of it. I loved theology, though I hated how many treated it like a child’s game of “let’s pretend.” Another love I had, as far as time permitted, was history. My age was so sure of itself. It stood in direct opposition to thousands of years of human history on many social and existential facts. From a young age, I found the Hegelian zeitgeist’s advancement as something not necessary, and even damaging. I was told this person or that group of the past was evil or stupid, but of course it was easy to critique everything that we now know the outcome of. And when we are critical of their values, why did they have them? It may not have rationally or valuably justified their ideals, but it would have at least made sense to find the causal roles of such. Perhaps all our ancestors were evil and backward and we are enlightened. Sure, I can grant that for sake of conversation. However, how do we know we are not? Do you think they were just as self-assured and dismissive as we are? We go back to how difficult it is to find some objectivity to grasp onto when making sense of the past. How about mathematics? We blame them for the number of people they killed, and that seems like a fair place to start, but we are not without our blood on our hands. Of course, you will have your reasons for why this blood is acceptable to be spilled and perhaps you could convince me, but do you think they didn’t have their arguments? They were at least convincing enough to work at the time. How do we make sure we are not the evil ones that will be held up in disgust in the history books. In part, we can’t control that. Partially because our cause may lose and the other team will write the books, partially because we may have just accidentally trusted people and ideas we didn’t know the outcomes to. However, It is worth it to look outside of our age and its context. Sure, today may have its reasons for why we need genocide and oppression, but do you find past reasons sufficient for their day’s evil? Perhaps we are truly the enlightened age and everyone else was an idiot, or maybe our ability to convince us to forget humility is our great weakness. While we can look outside of our age to another and its context, it is not to see a place to return to or a trajectory to continue on. It is to mine each time and it’s circumstances for the values and executions that would have most merit given our new context. Now is one way, yesterday another, and tomorrow is something completely different and unknown. If you have been a fool up until now, you don’t have to be tomorrow. If you wonder why things are some painful, look to the context of memories that affect you. If you are planning for the future, the present and past gives you options and ideas, but the future has every right to be markedly different. This timelessness means that we need to fight fate as it comes at us. The future is unsure and we have work to do. It also means we need to accept fate as it happens and learn to incorporate and embrace it. Finally, this makes room for hope, because the darkness we could be in, doesn’t mean there is no light to come.