Monday, June 22, 2009

Time is as Water

mq01 at Ms M's Place made an interesting statement that caused the philosophical synapses to fire.

"The more I become one with the moment, the faster the present becomes the past."

Discussed and contemplated for as long as the human species has been sentient is time. What does it mean? What is it? What is the past, present and future? What of fate? What of free will?

What is the present? There is no present. There is only the direct relationship between the immediate future and immediate past. You are not really reading this, your brain is processing what input your eyes viewed and your brain is directing your eyes to the next word for more input.

The present is a razor's edge (One of the reasons I chose that name for this blog). A perfectly sharpened razor has two well defined sides; leading and trailing or right and left, depending on your preference. A perfect razor's edge comes to a point at an atomic level, with a cloud of electrons at the utmost edge. That cloud is by nature, indeterminate. Sure, using math, one can determine exactly where the electrons are, but time must be removed and for the most part, the only thing in the system that can be measured is the position.

So? Even the edge of a perfect razor cannot be defined, just as the present.

As motorcycle riders, the now, the present must expand yet stay indeterminate. We look two seconds ahead, five, twelve and meld that into our immediate past. Traffic, road, bike and weather conditions, past and present merge into one when speeding down a long road or tearing up the twisties.

Our minds' inner eye opens to this; allows us the enviable joy of seeing more, experiencing more than the typical human being. The more one becomes in the moment, the more moment is being experienced.

Imagine a small stream babbling along the edge of a forest. Its water is not moving very quickly, simply making a leisurely trip down stream. Now, imagine a flood. The stream is now a torrent of water. It is the same stream, but it has widened and quickened. You are experiencing something wider and grander than the babbling brook. And, it is moving at a greater pace.

It may be a double edged sword for riders. The more we experience and the wider our range of now becomes, the quicker it seems to go by.

OK, enough rambling. I have work to do and a project bike to work on, not necessarily in that order.

2 comments:

Mr. Motorcycle said...

O.K., That was deep. It's like the shit we talked about while tripping on acid, or stoned out of our minds as teenagers.

Cool.

mq01 said...

:) hmmm... awesome!

did you see apocalypse now? the part about the snail crawling across a razor blade? i could never get past that scene...

FABULOUS, razor, thank you.