Do you ask the reason for this? All past time is in the same place; it all presents the same aspect to us, it lies together. Everything slips into the same abyss.
Besides, an event which in its entirety is of brief compass cannot contain long intervals. The time which we spend in living is but a point, nay, even less than a point. But this point of time, infinitesimal as it is, nature has mocked by making it seem outwardly of longer duration; she has taken one portion thereof and made it infancy, another childhood, another youth, another the gradual slope, so to speak, from youth to old age, and old age itself is still another.
How many steps for how short a climb!
It was but a moment ago that I saw you off on your journey; and yet this "moment ago" makes up a goodly share of our existence, which is so brief, we should reflect, that it will soon come to an end altogether.
In other years, time did not seem to me to go so swiftly; now, it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps, because I feel that the finish-line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take heed and reckon up my losses.
Besides, an event which in its entirety is of brief compass cannot contain long intervals. The time which we spend in living is but a point, nay, even less than a point. But this point of time, infinitesimal as it is, nature has mocked by making it seem outwardly of longer duration; she has taken one portion thereof and made it infancy, another childhood, another youth, another the gradual slope, so to speak, from youth to old age, and old age itself is still another.
How many steps for how short a climb!
It was but a moment ago that I saw you off on your journey; and yet this "moment ago" makes up a goodly share of our existence, which is so brief, we should reflect, that it will soon come to an end altogether.
In other years, time did not seem to me to go so swiftly; now, it seems fast beyond belief, perhaps, because I feel that the finish-line is moving closer to me, or it may be that I have begun to take heed and reckon up my losses.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49
We find comfort in the security of a certain permanence, and the power of memory enables us to preserve our experiences in orderly categories.
Yet our mental divisions of the past, the present, and the future might mislead us into thinking that time somehow proceeds in discrete intervals, when what we call a “moment” doesn’t have any duration at all. The process of change is like a continuous and indivisible flow, where no one instant is any greater or lesser, any nearer or farther.
Whatever has already passed by, no longer exists, and whatever may come to be, does not yet exist; their transience does not admit of degrees. Even what I consider the “now” can’t be pinned down, having disappeared before it is circumscribed.
I may call that my youth, or this my old age, but I don’t actually “have” a youth or an old age, possessing only this one point of consciousness, which my judgment orients relative to recollections of what is gone and expectations of what is merely possible.
This letter reminds me of Book 11 in St. Augustine’s Confessions, where he reflects on how our awareness of time has far more to do with the limitations of our perspective than it does with any absolute conditions. Both Augustine and Seneca understood this many centuries before Einstein received the credit.
Such abstract concepts may be profound, but what do they have to do with living in daily practice?
They should encourage me to approach my existence with care, for what I assume to be long is short, and what I take to be lasting is ephemeral. The more attention I give it, the bigger it appears, though as my view broadens, it now looks ridiculously tiny. I count on having all the time in the world, while I am squandering this sacred blink of an eye.
We find comfort in the security of a certain permanence, and the power of memory enables us to preserve our experiences in orderly categories.
Yet our mental divisions of the past, the present, and the future might mislead us into thinking that time somehow proceeds in discrete intervals, when what we call a “moment” doesn’t have any duration at all. The process of change is like a continuous and indivisible flow, where no one instant is any greater or lesser, any nearer or farther.
Whatever has already passed by, no longer exists, and whatever may come to be, does not yet exist; their transience does not admit of degrees. Even what I consider the “now” can’t be pinned down, having disappeared before it is circumscribed.
I may call that my youth, or this my old age, but I don’t actually “have” a youth or an old age, possessing only this one point of consciousness, which my judgment orients relative to recollections of what is gone and expectations of what is merely possible.
This letter reminds me of Book 11 in St. Augustine’s Confessions, where he reflects on how our awareness of time has far more to do with the limitations of our perspective than it does with any absolute conditions. Both Augustine and Seneca understood this many centuries before Einstein received the credit.
Such abstract concepts may be profound, but what do they have to do with living in daily practice?
They should encourage me to approach my existence with care, for what I assume to be long is short, and what I take to be lasting is ephemeral. The more attention I give it, the bigger it appears, though as my view broadens, it now looks ridiculously tiny. I count on having all the time in the world, while I am squandering this sacred blink of an eye.
—Reflection written in 3/2013 (or was it? ;-)
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