Consider this, this Wednesday…
Time is quite the wibbly wobbly thing. Our perception of it shifts as we age. The more we have of it the faster it goes. The more we pay attention the less we have. And based of research we have also learned that you can go forward in time, that you can move so fast that you are further in the future.
Time may be difficult to grasp, but there is no denying it is real.
We as a race have found ways to keep trac of time. We have found ways to navigate it and to organize it. And if you dear reader are human, then you probably know we do so astrologically. We base our time around how often our world spins and goes fully around our sun. Keeping track of star patterns and the technicalities of leap years.
I can only assume that we went backwards and used math to decide years, days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Seconds being just a moment in time.
That is the scientific worldview of time. But we as a human race are very subject to the wibbly wobbliness of it. So we often see and feel it based on eras; as in a chunk of time remembered by its cultural/historical significance. These can also overlap.
Which now brings me to the topic to be considered. In the perception of a major time chunk we call centuries (100 years), who was there, what can they say about it, and why do we care?
In 2017, the last verifiable person to be born in the 1800s died. Th woman by no means lived the life we think of in that century but she met and spoke to and interacted with the people from that time. That was a culture and an era long gone by now, but in our perception, she was a link to it. She lived a long life, and that perceived link is gone with her.
Still a person born in 1900 is practically just as close to that time as the person born in 1899.
We perceive things in such ways because of our cultural and natural way of perceiving time. There are the generations who get to see the end of an era, and the generations who get to be, the end of an era. And a lucky few get both.
Based on human perceptions, I will not be the end of an era. I was born in 2000, I was instead born at the very start of a new century. But I was able to see the end of the 1800s. I do not know if I will live long enough so the end of the 1900s. I will probably watch, like many as it fades away. But the end of it will likely evade me.
But this makes me think of the children being born now. They are not in the end, or the beginning, they are not even in the middle of a century. What will they see? How will they see it? What will we teach them of what came before?
Time is such a difficult thing to grasp. The human perception of time is even harder. Much of this discussion is based on culture. The Chinese use a completely different calendar for example. So do many other cultures. Currently and historically. Like the Mayans. I even got to experience the end of their projection of time.
What is lost and what is gained in this process? Who is lost and gained in the process?
How does this affect you?
Who have you lived to see alive?
Who have you lived to see die?
Who will you get to see born?
And who will see you?
Regardless of when you are reading this, if you have any thoughts on the discussion, please share!
God bless!