{"id":16169,"date":"2014-11-21T12:03:07","date_gmt":"2014-11-21T17:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16169"},"modified":"2014-11-21T12:03:35","modified_gmt":"2014-11-21T17:03:35","slug":"check-the-clock-check-the-calendar-and-take-a-breath","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/check-the-clock-check-the-calendar-and-take-a-breath\/","title":{"rendered":"Check the Clock. Check the Calendar. And Take a Breath."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

[Photo by user orchidgalore, on Flickr<\/a>. (Click to enlarge, but it’s a large image — over 3MB.) It took me a beat to realize what I was looking at: I thought it was a real-world recreation of one of Dali’s “melting watches” paintings. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.)]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

No matter how hard you try to be what you once were, you can only be what you are here and now. Time hypnotizes. When you are nine, you think you’ve always been nine years old and will always be. And then when you turn seventy, you are always and forever seventy. You’re in the present, you’re trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen. You’re only you, here, now — the present you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ray Bradbury [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and (same whiskey river<\/em> post):<\/p>\n

You who walk the earth know only the moment, which is whisked away with your next exhalation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Ray Bradbury [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Exercise <\/strong><\/p>\n

First forget what time it is
\nfor an hour
\ndo it regularly every day<\/p>\n

then forget what day of the week it is
\ndo this regularly for a week
\nthen forget what country you are in
\nand practice doing it in company
\nfor a week
\nthen do them together
\nfor a week
\nwith as few breaks as possible<\/p>\n

follow these by forgetting how to add
\nor to subtract
\nit makes no difference
\nyou can change them around
\nafter a week
\nboth will help you later
\nto forget how to count<\/p>\n

forget how to count
\nstarting with your own age
\nstarting with how to count backward
\nstarting with even numbers
\nstarting with Roman numerals
\nstarting with fractions of Roman numerals
\nstarting with the old calendar
\ngoing on to the old alphabet
\ngoing on to the alphabet
\nuntil everything is continuous again<\/p>\n

go on to forgetting elements
\nstarting with water
\nproceeding to earth
\nrising in fire<\/p>\n

forget fire<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(W. S. Merwinn [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I cannot shake time off me. He squats continually before my tree. Everything that has been in my life is always with me, simultaneously, and the events refuse to stand nicely one after the other in a row. They hook into each other, shift around, scatter, force themselves on me or try to slip out of my memory. I have difficulty with them in the necklace of my memory. I am not a carefree little herder of time at all. Day and night pass. Summer and winter, another summer, and here is winter again. This is easy, but not the time that has made of me what I am and that lives within me with another rhythm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Wilma Stockenstr\u00f6m [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

(\u201cSing the song of the moment…\u201d)<\/strong>
\n VII<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sing the song of the moment in careless carols, in the transient light of the day;
\nSing of the fleeting smiles that vanish and never look back;
\nSing of the flowers that bloom and fade without regret.
\nWeave not in memory\u2019s thread the days that would glide into nights.
\nTo the guests that must go bid God-speed, and wipe away all traces of their steps.
\nLet the moments end in moments with their cargo of fugitive songs.<\/p>\n

With both hands snap the fetters you made with your own heart chords;
\nTake to your breast with a smile what is easy and simple and near.
\nToday is the festival of phantoms that know not when they die.
\nLet your laughter flush in meaningless mirth like twinkles of light on the ripples;
\nLet your life lightly dance on the verge of Time like a dew on the tip of a leaf.
\nStrike in the chords of your harp the fitful murmurs of moments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rabindranath Tagore [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Squeeze the past like a sponge, smell the present like a rose, and send a kiss to the future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(unsourced, but quoted all over the place as an “Arabic [sometimes ‘Persian’] proverb”; a few sites attribute it to Guy de Maupassant, but unconvincingly — I haven’t been able to pin that down)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life flowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Bertrand Russell [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Accidents of Birth<\/strong><\/p>\n

Je vois les effroyables espaces de l\u2019Univers qui m\u2019enferment, et je me trouve attach\u00e9 \u00e0 un coin de cette vaste \u00e9tendue, sans savoir pourquoi je suis plut\u00f4t en ce lieu qu\u2019en un autre, ni pourquoi ce peu de temps qui m\u2019est donn\u00e9 \u00e0 vivre m\u2019est assign\u00e9 \u00e0 ce point plut\u00f4t qu’\u00e0 un autre de toute l\u2019\u00e9ternit\u00e9 qui m\u2019a pr\u00e9c\u00e9d\u00e9, et de toute qui me suit.<\/em>*<\/p>\n

—Pascal, Pens\u00e9es sur la religion<\/em><\/p>\n

The approach of a man\u2019s life out of the past is history, and the approach of time out of the future is mystery. Their meeting is the present, and it is consciousness, the only time life is alive. The endless wonder of this meeting is what causes the mind, in its inward liberty of a frozen morning, to turn back and question and remember. The world is full of places. Why is it that I am here?<\/p>\n

—Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House<\/em><\/p>\n

Spared by a car or airplane crash or
\ncured of malignancy, people look
\naround with new eyes at a newly
\npraiseworthy world, blinking eyes like these.<\/p>\n

For I\u2019ve been brought back again from the
\nfine silt, the mud where our atoms lie
\ndown for long naps. And I\u2019ve also been
\npardoned miraculously for years
\nby the lava of chance which runs down
\nthe world\u2019s gullies, silting us back.
\nHere I am, brought back, set up, not yet
\nhappened away.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not this random<\/span>
\nlife only, throwing its sensual
\nastonishments upside down on
\nthe bloody membranes behind my eyeballs,
\nnot just me being here again, old
\nneeder, looking for someone to need,
\nbut you, up from the clay yourself,
\nas luck would have it, and inching
\nover the same little segment of earth—
\nball, in the same little eon, to
\nmeet in a room, alive in our skins,
\nand the whole galaxy gaping there
\nand the centuries whining like gnats\u2014
\nyou, to teach me to see it, to see
\nit with you, and to offer somebody
\nuncomprehending, impudent thanks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(William Meredith [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

________________________<\/p>\n

* Google Translate renders this passage in English, with a couple emendations for clarity, like this:<\/p>\n

I see the terrible spaces of the universe which surround me, and I find myself tied to one corner of this vast expanse, without knowing why I am in this place rather than another, or why this short time given to me to live is assigned to that point rather than another eternity before me, and all that follow me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Photo by user orchidgalore, on Flickr. (Click to enlarge, but it’s a large image — over 3MB.) It took me a beat to realize what I was looking at: I thought it was a real-world recreation of one of Dali’s “melting watches” paintings. (Used here under a Creative Commons license.)] From whiskey river: No matter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,250,5,36,251],"tags":[351,1019,3165,3568,3855,3926,3927,3928],"class_list":{"0":"post-16169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-art","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-ws-merwin","13":"tag-time","14":"tag-ray-bradbury","15":"tag-william-meredith","16":"tag-albert-einstein","17":"tag-wilma-stockenstrom","18":"tag-rabindranath-tagore","19":"tag-transience","20":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4cN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16169"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16173,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16169\/revisions\/16173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}