The gift of time
23 April 2018
This Easter, I’ve received an unexpected gift: the gift of time. Being tired of holidays into the future, I decided to revisit my past. So I spent a day wandering through the halls and amphitheatres of my old university. A lot of it has changed, perhaps for the better — there are vending machines in the corridors now, and pretty paintings on the walls. A lot of posters in foreign languages. And a new bookshop. But to me, what hasn’t changed is even more special. The air in some big amphitheatres. The smell of wood. The silence. The sense of something hanging in the air — it could be unspoken words, or a shared understanding, or unfinished sentences at the end of lectures. Whatever it is, it lingers behind in classrooms after everyone has rushed out, and it reverberates into a memory theatre, when you return, retracing your steps from many years back. It’s like time has stood still, in these amphitheatres. The gift of time.
So now when I am back from holiday and we resume our philosophy sessions, I mention Carlo Rovelli’s recent book, The Order of Time, to my students. And we debate the impact that space has on it, and whether either has any kind of reality to it. We do this using reasoning and argumentation, precise articulations. Next time, we should include examples of situations where space and time have become relative (or outright absent), in our own life experience. Not all philosophy happens in texts, words, and lines of arguments.
I find it intriguing how the smell of cologne or a piece of furniture, tune of a song, or even taste of food can take us immediately back to a specific situation or time in our lives. It truly does give you a sense of time travel because there can be a flood of memories that you hadn’t thought about in years. We move forward and carve out new experiences for ourselves, pushing the old ones in the back of our minds. I find it particularly interesting that we have the memories stored the entire time but it takes an outside stimulus to trigger them and let them flow into the forefront of our thinking. Another aspect of this that I enjoy thinking about is how time can alter your perception of a given place when you return to it. For example, I attended a church back home that felt like the world’s largest stadium when I was younger. There was a ground level and even a first floor with more pews. I thought it was the largest structure in the world. However, as time went on, I left the church. I came back years later with my family and realized that the same auditorium wasn’t nearly as large as I’d imagined in my youth, but still held the same significance. In those moments I feel like time slows down. There’s a saying that goes, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." I’m not entirely positive about whether this is the correct context to include this quote, but it certainly feels applicable.
Daniel, you’re right about the power of small details to evoke another time and place (it’s called the Proustian effect), but wrong about the quote. Or imprecise. It’s actually a French saying, originated in a 19th century journal (Les Guêpes, or “The Wasps”) which is usually mentioned as an ironic, if not even sarcastic remark. What you mean, I believe, is something else. You actually reflect on the fact that sometimes, the same thing looks or feels differently (larger / smaller, more / less significant etc.) at a different point in time. Of course, what actually changes is our perception of it – not the thing itself (in your case, the church).
Yes, this kind of experience is probably universal — and it shows that ‘time travel’ is possible, at least in this simple way.
I believe that time and space should be two codependent variables. I think that we cannot start to understand the concept of time without locating such memories or moments within a specific space. Similarly, we are also not able to picture a space without some sense of time to it. For example, when thinking of the city of London we do not all envision the same idea of how the city looks like. For some of us London is what we currently see in November 2018, but in the mind of someone who has visited it in 1970 the city takes a completely shape. Reconnecting with the initial experience of the university visit, time and place had changed. Emotions and feelings (all perceptive qualities did not). Therefore the image of the university changed over time because both factors evolved and due to their close codependency they both changed. However, this short story made me think of Murakami’s book Norwegian Woods. In his story the writer opens the novel with the present image of the narrator who starts to retell his life story, which naturally involves friendships, love and loss. Something that struck me is that when the protagonist’s friend turns 17 he commits suicide. Murakami often recalls during the novel that time for the current narrator went on, since he’s now 38, but what about his friend Suzuki that died at 17? Does time affect the dead? The idea of Suzuki in the protagonist’s mind will never evolve since last time the two were together, they were both 17. However when Suzuki takes his life he crosses the border between life and death, therefore his spatial transition necessarily implies a temporary transition as well, but the only place where such idea is still relevant is in the protagonist’s mind since he is still alive. Does that mean that space and time are concepts only applicable to life? And if so, how can we imagine to survive without the concept of time evolving?
Anna, that is SUCH a good question! To what extent are the space – time equation and every reflection associated with it constrained by our existence? What — if any — kind of time applies to those who have crossed the border between life and death? Or if considerations of time (and space) are not appropriate for them anymore, perhaps the notion of duration, or that of eternity might be? Or should we consider death atemporal? Does it defy time altogether — and if so, does that mean that it is superior to life, since life is bound by our spatial and temporal categories? Many philosophers have reflected on this along the centuries, from St. Augustine to Kant. But the debate remains open and just as fascinating as ever. Well done.
Time is funny that way. On one end of the spectrum, as we grow older we view the world as this entirely different place from it was in our past. Then, at the same time, small details of how it used to feel sprout up and remind us that the world has not changed much in its true intrinsic values. Our classroom settings have shifted to a more technological savvy environment, and yet, the purpose remains the same. Students fill the lecture halls, some pay attention, others do not. The professor stands in front and tries to pass on a legacy to the students, to attempt to inspire some form of greatness. Examples flow through my mind of this shifting physicality, and constant emotional response throughout time, displaying that humans are still human, despite the changing landscape.
Indeed, humans are still humans – despite their increased ‘partnership’ with technology; in fact, perhaps because of that, they show their human nature even more. And the classroom is one of those settings where human, face-to-face communication proves its value. Philosophy would be very poor without the sparkles of minds meeting in dialogue.
This summer, I’ve also received the gift of time. I visited my old boarding school in Australia. Of course a lot has changed, there were so many new buildings. I was not surprise that a lot has changed because it has been 8 years. I’ve spend almost the whole day walking around the campus because the campus is really big. When I got to the dorm that I used to live in for 3 years, the set up of the dorm was different from what it used to be but it really brings me back in time of when I went there. There were so many good and bad memories in every room of this dorm. I think I can relate to our story because when I read this, it reminded me of this.