I derive a huge amount of pleasure from perusing bookshops. These days, i tend to favour second hand book stores as i'm more likely to afford something in there.
A few weeks ago, i had nothing to do before the bus came so i ventured into a second hand book store to kill some time and....well, you never know what you might stumble across.
My eyes fell upon a book, wedged tight between others. It had no dust jacket, just some dirty, faded gold lettering on its worn blue spine. The title of the book suggested it was something to do with time, and the manipulation of it. I picked it up and flicked through it. It read like The Philosophy Of Time Travel. The fictional book in the awesome film, Donnie Darko.
This was very exciting to me. I have a keen interest in the notion of time. Before i started this college course, i would often read books on physics - often related to the idea of time and how it works.
Here, you can cross over into philosophy. Does time have a beginning? Does it have an end? Is it a straight line or is it like a ball of string, every event happening at the same time?
To us humans, time is a thief. It steals your looks, it steals your mind. It steals your loved ones and your memories. It can also work in your favour.....time is a healer. Some memories are best left in the vaults of time. Time is the one constant. It's happening all the.....well, all the time.
Time is also relative, and Einstein described it beautifully. I shan't repeat him here, but rather just say time always goes fast when you don't want it to, and slows down when you wish it would just hurry the fuck up.
When i was a kid, i wished i could control time. I pictured it as a remote control. I could pause the class i was in, or fast foward through it. I pictured in my head what it would be like and thought it would be pretty damn cool. Then, Adam Sandler made a movie out of my idea called Click. A bad movie. And i didn't even get paid for it. Still, i guess being Adam Sandler is punishment enough, he doesn't need me ragging on him.
So this book. Its author claims that he had visions in his dreams. Visions which later turned out to be glimpses of the future. Before you do as i would have done, which is simply pass it off as a load of old twonk written by some daft clairvoyant in a sequin gown covered with felt half moons, i should say that the author was a respected scientist, and admits that he doesn't believe in such things himself.
It makes for an interesting read. Thing is.....he also tells you how to do it. I never remember my dreams. Not the ones at night anyway. I wake up and my head is already concentrating on the day, not what my brain just ticked over in the night. I dismiss dreams as simply that....the brain ticking over. My book tells me how to interpret the dreams, and how to then use that interpretation to prepare for future events.
Before any of you start thinking...."Better dream up the lottery results then hur hur hur"....i don't think it works like that. It works more on the idea that your path, your destiny is happening right now. Its already happened.
Picture time as a long, straight road. As you go past certain things, lamp posts, bushes, roadkill, you can see them as they approach, and when they go by you can see them in your rearview mirror. The idea is that time is just like that. Just because its gone past you, it doesnt mean it doesnt exist anymore. And, just as in a car....you can see things as they approach.
I struggle with the idea of fate. If i wrote you a note saying "You will die today". You might think, "Fuck this, i'll hide in the shed where nothing can get me"...and then the shed collapses on you and kills you. So, did i make you die? If i hadn't said anything, you wouldn't have been in the shed and you wouldn't have been killed. But, i knew you were going to die today and tried to warn you.
Its a head fuck. Of monumental proportions.
Do i want to know my own future? What good would it do if i can't stop it? If that time is running now, whatever mistakes i'm going to make.....i've made them already. It's done, and there's nothing i can do about it except be good enough to come into being and pass away at the right time in order to fulfil my obligation to that event.
Psychics are not very nice people. To claim to be able to communicate with a deceased child is very wrong. Unless its true. Which.....all things being equal.....it really isn't. Criss Angel, the rock star magician, did a fantastic thing on a show in America once. He offered Uri Geller (psychic) a MILLION DOLLARS if Uri could tell him what was written inside an envelope he was holding.
Of course, Derren Brown does these things all the time. But Derren is a magician, and he has numerous ways of doing it, none of which could be employed by Uri on the hop. Uri failed the challenge. Know what Criss had written in the envelope?
9/11
His point being, if anyone really was psychic they could have seen it coming and averted it.
Quite a good point. I'm not a fan of Criss Angel, but full marks to him there.
Scary stuff. Next time, i'll factor in the notion of parallel worlds.....that'll make the head hurt a little more.
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