Hobbies

Now here's a topic that everyone can relate to, because everyone has at least one, even if they won't admit it. At some point, you've probably complained to someone else about boredom. Chances are that they'll reply with some form of "read a book", "clean something", or, "get a hobby." Stop and think about this for a moment, and you'll realize that this is remarkably good advice. I happen to have the fortune to have been born into fairly well off family, so I've had the chance to explore many different activities, some of which can be extremely expensive. I currently participate in nordic skiing, and scuba diving as well as other things such as the Junior Classical League. The last of these requires some explanation. The Junior Classical League, or JCL for short, is a fairly large organization of students interested in learning more and carrying on the traditions of the classical civilizations such as the greeks and the romans. Once a year we get together for three days and celebrate the classics, with chariot races and gladiatorial combat and larger than life trebuchets it is a blast. I feel privileged to be able to participate in these kinds of things, and I feel sorry for all the people who don't have these opportunities, and feel scorn for those who do, but let them pass by.

Time III

Time, in my mind, is not linear. Think about it like this, think of your favorite book, and then imagine that you are one of the characters in that book. Now if you have read it, think of C.S. Lewis's, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. While on one of the islands the encounter, lucy reads a story, but finds that she is unable to turn back to the beginning, or for that matter, back at all. Imagine that you are a character in a book like that. The book is time. You are the character. Time is all there, all at one, you can pick it up, look at it from any angle you wish, but you can't go forward ahead of what you've read already, what you've already encountered. You also can't go back, and erase past mistakes, or re-experience what happened in the past. We move through time, passing from moment to moment experiencing each thing as it happens. Although time is all there all at once, we have no control over its passage, and it is that which drives us mad.

Time II

The fact that we human beings have terminal, fairly short lifespans justifies our use of time, being early or late, or on time for that matter are just tools to help us deal with how short our lifespans are. Of course most humans aren't afraid of death, it's just like going to sleep, except that they don't get to wake back up again the next day and socialize. That's what we're afraid of. That the passage of time will get out of hand and when it's time to depart, we'll have regrets about what we've done and about what we haven't gotten around to doing. But most of all, that no one will either care about or remember us. Of course this is an irrational fear, and if you find that you in fact are dying alone and forgotten, then think about what you might have done, because you probably deserve it.

Time I

I've been thinking about doing a series of posts on one topic, but I had to think of a topic broad enough. Then it hit me. Time.

I'll start with the basics. Time a human quality. Without us there would be no passing of time, for we invented the very concept of it. Without us, there is no concept of time. Things would just happen when they did, causing something else to happen. Now I know that there are many people who would be more than happy to call me out on all of this and make me stare at a piece of paper as they prove to me that I am wrong and they are right, but I don't care. These are my own theories, my own individual ideas, if you are reading this, I am not asking you to accept these ideas, only think about them, and formulate your own thoughts.