Time warp

Have you noticed that time passes differently based on your particular perception of it?  If we are busy it tends to pass quickly.  If we're bored, it drags.  But what time is cannot really be defined.  We can tell that a duration has passed, but we can't measure it except by tracking some cycle within space.  This is still a function of our perception.  So if the rotation of that atom or star were to change speed, we would only be able to know it by the relation of it to another object also bound in space and time.

Think of it like an airplane.  If there were no windows to see things moving past you, you'd have no idea whether you were actually moving or not because everything in the plane would be moving at the same rate, whether that rate was faster or slower, everything would continue to move in unison and you'd never know how fast it was going.  Same goes for time. For all we know, time may actually not be static and might actually pass at different rates which we can't perceive because we can't step outside of it to find a fixed point of reference.

One thing that certainly seems to slow time is expectation.  I've been looking forward to many things lately.  Not in the sense of enjoyment, but simply, a lot of things to keep track of in the near future.  This made the previous month drag like none other.  I'm glad it's over so some of those things can actually occur and time can go back to the pace I usually perceive.

But this led me to remember something Augustine, the philosopher and theologian said.  He talked a lot about time and said that what we call future is really just expectation of something coming into being.  The past is the memory of that moment which no longer exists.  So that makes the present the point between expecting something and remembering it...which really has no space at all.  If you squeeze your conscious perception of time passing down to the smallest moment you can grasp, you'll experience an infinitesimally small point at which the future is sliding into the past, the expectation becoming memory.  It seems to rocket by and can actually be quite dizzying.  Try it right now and see.  Faster than sand through a funnel, moments of potential are becoming memories and we can't hold on to any one of those points.

This tiny point that occupies no area, no space, no time, is the present.  The eternal now.  And that is all that really exists.  If I focus on it too much, I seem to see everything around me like Neo seeing the matrix code; in constant flux through an infinitely minute Now.

At this point I also usually experience a sublimity.  Something enormous and palpably greater than myself.  It's there.  And if I chase it, try to focus on it, I find that it's focusing right back at me.  And that's where I usually lose it.  My mind starts to unravel and the window closes, thankfully, so I can exist without being dissolved into that present. 

I believe that this is a glimpse of the nature and reality of God.  Not some man in the sky.  If that's what you think then your conception of God is far too small.  I'm talking about the Source of all sources.  The prime.  The thing from which all that is derives its being.  And by many other philosophical proofs, I could demonstrate why it must be personal.  In short, it can't be a nameless force or a reflection of my own infinity because it must needs be something higher than my faculty to perceive it or contemplate it.  So if I can regard it, how much more would the source have to be capable of regarding?  If I can think of it, how much more must it, first and to a greater degree, think of me.  But there are treatises (literally) on this, and I invite you to do your own homework on it.

My point is that where else could such a being (even "being" is too small a word) exist but in the only spaceless, timeless space that does exist?  That ever-present, unchanging Now. In that point, I can access the big bang.  I can understand the origin of the universe.  I can know the meaning of knowing.  I can experience what IS on a deeper level than can be cognitively processed.  It's right there all the time.  Seriously try it, see what you experience.

Avatar

I saw the new movie Avatar this morning. Wow. This blog is about Contemplation, and those of us who practice it have a tendency to find deep connections and meanings in the most everyday sorts of things. So, pop culture is as rich a trove as ancient books.

Avatar is destined to be one of those gems. No doubt it will take it's place alongside LOTR, the Matrix, and Star Wars. Not only for the ground-breaking movie-making, but for the rich story and the boundless new world it has created. I'm sure there will be fans and games and all the customary goofiness to go with it, but amongst it all is a deep resonating truth.

Perhaps best of all for me was that the movie didn't attempt to explain everything. It created a world nearly as full of history and life as Middle Earth and set the story against it. But the whole time I kept feelinglike there was so much I just didn't know yet. Just like Middle Earth's ruins and dialects are full of well-crafted backstory, if only in the imagination of the creator, so is Pandora and the Na'vi. They didn't bother to explain every detail, and becasue of it, I'm sure the fans will gladly take the leaps and develop the world into something far bigger than it started out. It will become an alternate universe of it's own.

As an Environmental Scientist, I also have a certain way of viewing the world just like any professional develops. In that right, it is easy to disappoint me in movies because of simple flaws. For example, Reign of Fire, which had potential to be an excellent world fell short in that dragons burned wholesome food to make into far less valuable ash, which they ate...Not ecologically possible. Better to make them full-on magic creatures than try to scientificize them and do it poorly. But Pandora did not disappoint. From the design of the creatures, to the plant life and even the more mystic elements. This treads the lines enough to be fantastic but without violating any of the veils necessary to suspend disbelief. In short, I bought it.

The story, while certainly applicable to many current events, and certainly full of homage to great works in the past, has a philosophy and a truth that I am still absorbing and processing, applying to my worlds. Without this, it would simply be a good movie. But with it, it has power. It can change people. Affect them. I am not naive enough to think a movie will revolutionize the world, but just as the Matrix has already entered popular thought in ways that many don't even realize, Avatar will do so, I believe. At least it has already for me and likely will for those who think along my lines.

It's too early for me to express it just yet. But it has grabbed my imagination and the webs are forming. Go see it and let's talk about it.