Time warp

TIME WARP

We all have different perceptions of time, particularly of the past. Time is linear; time is non-linear, scientists proclaim. But we find it hard to follow science in its search for truth when it comes down to putting our own life into some kind of perspective.  We keep thinking of time as if we have never moved very far from our primitive existence.

Despite the convenience of modern technology keeping track of our memories from the moment we are born—or even before—(ultrasounds provide images of foetuses!) our present circumstances, our memory capacity and the power of recall of our nearest and dearest have a way of warping time, twisting it into knots or stretching it out like an acrobat’s tightrope.

Time perception has been a recurrent theme of fiction and art—I would dare say, perhaps, even more compulsively than of science.

My effort to somehow sway control over my past, typically results in something like what follows. I would call it an exercise at imitating one of my favourite poets, e e cummings:

splodge of a past

i carry splodges of pastness

within me

they blot my presentscape

i can’t unblur the yestermorrow