{"id":16417,"date":"2015-02-20T12:45:41","date_gmt":"2015-02-20T17:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16417"},"modified":"2015-02-20T12:45:41","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T17:45:41","slug":"all-the-directions-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/02\/all-the-directions-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Directions of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: <\/em>Clock with Blue Wing, by Marc Chagall (1949, oil on canvas). Translator Susanna Nied identifies<\/a> this painting as the source or inspiration for Inger Christensen’s poem, below<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

A mysterious thing, this branching structure of life: one senses in every past instant a parting of ways, a “thus” and an “otherwise”, with innumerable dazzling zigzags bifurcating and trifurcating against the dark background of the past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Vladimir Nabokov [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

One advantage in keeping a diary is that you become aware with reassuring clarity of the changes which you constantly suffer and which in a general way are naturally believed, surmised, and admitted by you, but which you’ll unconsciously deny when it comes to the point of gaining hope or peace from such an admission. In the diary you find proof that in situations which today would seem unbearable, you lived, looked around and wrote down observations, that this right hand moved then as it does today, when we may be wiser because we are able to look back upon our former condition, and for that very reason have got to admit the courage of our earlier striving in which we persisted even in sheer ignorance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Kafka [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/a>…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If I Stand<\/strong><\/p>\n

If I stand
\nalone in the snow
\nit is clear
\nthat I am a clock<\/p>\n

how else would eternity
\nfind its way around<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Inger Christensen [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Do you suffer what a French paleontologist called “the distress that makes human wills founder daily under the crushing number of living things and stars”? For the world is as glorious as ever, and exalting, but for credibility’s sake let’s start with the bad news. An infant is a pucker of the earth’s thin skin; so are we. We arise like budding yeasts and break off; we forget our beginnings. A mammal swells and circles and lays him down. You and I have finished swelling; our circling periods are playing out, but we can still leave footprints in a trail whose end we do not know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Then we are agreed, said Uncle. There will be animate matter with intelligence, and there will be an immortal soul in each living being, connecting it to you.<\/p>\n

Wait a moment, I said. Only we, and the Void, can be immortal. Immortality does not exist in Aalam-104729<\/span>. The thing has a direction of time, caused by the dulling of its energy, and everything in it will eventually dissipate. Nothing lasts forever in Aalam-104729, or in any of the universes I have created. I will consider a soul, but it cannot be immortal. It must follow the direction of time, like everything else. It must gradually decay and disintegrate. We cannot begin making exceptions to the rules here and there, helter-skelter, or we\u2019ll end up with chaos again. Let me consider this… Maybe in the life of each creature I will allow a brief recognition of something vast, a flash of Me, a hint of the unchanging and infinite Void.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Alan Lightman [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

Unit of Measure<\/strong><\/p>\n

All can be measured by the standard of the capybara<\/a>.
\nEveryone is lesser than or greater than the capybara.
\nEverything is taller or shorter than the capybara.
\nEverything is mistaken for a Brazilian dance craze
\nmore or less frequently than the capybara.
\nEveryone eats greater or fewer watermelons
\nthan the capybara. Everyone eats more or less bark.
\nEveryone barks more than or less than the capybara,
\nwho also whistles, clicks, grunts, and emits what is known
\nas his alarm squeal. Everyone is more or less alarmed
\nthan a capybara, who—because his back legs
\nare longer than his front legs—feels like
\nhe is going downhill at all times.
\nEveryone is more or less a master of grasses<\/em>
\nthan the capybara. Or going by the scientific name,
\nmore or less Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris<\/em>—
\nor, going by the Greek translation, more or less
\nwater hog<\/em>. Everyone is more or less
\nof a fish than the capybara, defined as the outermost realm
\nof fishdom by the 16th-century Catholic Church.
\nEveryone is eaten more or less often for Lent than
\nthe capybara. Shredded, spiced, and served over plantains,
\neverything tastes more or less like pork
\nthan the capybara. Before you decide that you are
\ngreater than or lesser than a capybara, consider
\nthat while the Brazilian capybara breeds only once a year,
\nthe Venezuelan variety mates continuously.
\nConsider the last time you mated continuously.
\nConsider the year of your childhood when you had
\nexactly as many teeth as the capybara—
\ntwenty—and all yours fell out, and all his
\nkept growing. Consider how his skin stretches
\nin only one direction. Accept that you are stretchier
\nthan the capybara. Accept that you have foolishly
\ndistributed your eyes, ears, and nostrils
\nall over your face. Accept that now you will never be able
\nto sleep underwater. Accept that the fish
\nwill never gather to your capybara body offering
\ntheir soft, finned love. One of us<\/em>, they say, one of us<\/em>,
\nbut they will not say it to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Sandra Beasley [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

_____________<\/p>\n

Addendum<\/strong> (not really related to the week’s theme): After reading Sandra Beasley’s poem, above, I came across the following, too good not to share even if it stretches the meaning of whiskey river<\/em> Friday<\/a>:<\/p>\n

All year long, wild animals of all shapes, sizes and degrees of amphibianism sensibly make use of the road, an easy, tick-free route between forest and river.\u00a0 Their behavior sometimes perplexes us. Take the capybaras.\u00a0 Scarce during the dry season, once the savanna floods they are everywhere.\u00a0 Or at least their tracks are, for the actual animals have been spotted just once or twice.\u00a0 There are two strange things about their tracks:\u00a0 They appear only at night, even though capybaras are active by day, and they always head in one direction.\u00a0 This implies that the animals walk from the hill to the river and never come back again, as if we had some perpetual-capybara machine<\/a> that pops out animals at night, and a mysterious creature that gobbles them up in the water.\u00a0 I suppose we could put a radio-collar on one, but I would hate to lose a $300 piece of equipment to some slimy river monster.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kirsten Silvius, “Letter from Brazil,” Wildlife Conservation<\/em> (Jan\/Feb 1998))<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: Clock with Blue Wing, by Marc Chagall (1949, oil on canvas). Translator Susanna Nied identifies this painting as the source or inspiration for Inger Christensen’s poem, below.] From whiskey river: A mysterious thing, this branching structure of life: one senses in every past instant a parting of ways, a “thus” and an “otherwise”, with […]<\/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":[247,1393,405,250,5,36,251,324,713],"tags":[295,692,693,694,1019,1877,2124,3810,3973,3974,3975,3976,3977],"class_list":{"0":"post-16417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-nature","9":"category-art","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"category-researchresources","14":"category-humor-writing_cat","15":"tag-annie-dillard","16":"tag-present","17":"tag-past","18":"tag-future","19":"tag-time","20":"tag-franz-kafka","21":"tag-vladimir-nabokov","22":"tag-alan-lightman","23":"tag-marc-chagall","24":"tag-inger-christensen","25":"tag-sandra-beasley","26":"tag-capybaras","27":"tag-kirsten-silvius","28":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4gN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16417","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=16417"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16427,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16417\/revisions\/16427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}