The Impermanent Past

The Impermanent Past

Time is a strange concept. When we speak of time, we use terms such as past, present, and future. The tenses of our language operate on the same system. I exist. I existed. I will exist. But as we all experience, time is slippery, speeding up or slowing down as we age and experience life. 

Marcelo Gleiser, Professor of Philosophy, Physics, and Astronomy at Dartmouth College, in his essay, “There Is No Now,” argues that there is no “present.” Since we experience the world through our senses, and that sensory input takes time to be perceived, by the time the “present” arrives, it is already in the past. In his words, “We link the past and the future through the conceptual notion of a present, of “now.” But all we have is the accumulated memory of the past — stored in biological or various recording devices — and the expectation of the future.” In other words, what we perceive as the present is merely a link between the past and the future.

Professor Gleiser’s argument is thought-provoking. Without the “present” how are the past and future really placed? We are not seers; we cannot see the future. No one knows what will happen in the next minute, hour, day or year. But we continue to plan and hope for the best.

We think we have a firmer grasp on the past. It’s already happened. We’ve stored it in our “biological or various recording devices” and can look it up. The present is fleeting. The future is unknown. The past is fixed and known — or so we think.

It turns out, that the past is as impermanent as the present. As historians research, we find that the truths we held dear, may not be so true after all. Heroes are knocked from their pedestals. Wars are reviewed from opposing sides. Rights for some are found not to be rights for all. Our collective past is sliced and diced until we hardly recognize it.

Our personal pasts are almost as ephemeral.  How often have you recalled a family event and had a sibling remember it differently? Has an old photo ever surprised you with evidence of things long gone? Have you told a story so often that it has replaced the actuality of the event? We shape our past as we wish we could shape our future. 

The concept of time is elusive: the past is impermanent; the present doesn’t exist; we can’t expect anything of the future. Should we relish the “good old days” and fear the unknown future? Should we bemoan the sorrows of the present and remember the joys of the past? Should we project our fears into the future and forget the comforts of today? How should live in time?

Whether or not we understand it, how we spend time defines us. We spend time being happy or sad. We spend time helping others or grabbing all we can for ourselves. We spend time stepping forward with purpose or hiding in fear. We can spend time wishing away the past, hating the present, and dreading the future, or we can spend time shaping our lives the way we want them to be. We can shape time to serve our purposes and we can shape our purposes to serve the world. 

There may be not a present, the past may be gone, and the future may not work out according to plan, but the time we have is precious. Use it wisely. I laugh. I laughed, I will laugh. I love. l loved. I will love. I help. I helped. I will help. Let the tenses we live create time worth living.  

(Quotation from “The Island of Knowledge: The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning by Marcelo Gleiser, Basic Books, 2014)