There’s a difference between pain nurtured, softened by gentle hands and time ice cold, hardened by vast, hollow space.

Time is not a crutch, it is not a safety blanket that will heal your demons. The hands of time aren’t kind or gentle because it doesn’t have a soft spot to rest your head on, it doesn’t comfort you when all you need is someone to let you cry and patiently hold your hand until you feel safe. They say time heals all wounds, and we ask, sometimes even mindlessly, how we can ease someone's pain, our answer is usually “only time can do that.”

How little we understand the human condition to think some vast space holds magical powers to heal us. If someone stuck their hands in a bucket of ice, would you let them put their hands on you? Because that’s essentially what you’re doing if you carry the ridiculous notion that your pain will heal with time. Soulful, heartfelt, loving energy is what has the power.

We lie to ourselves, claiming to leave what has hurt us in the past where it belongs, but truth is, it’s never gone. Most days the elusive darkness follows me everywhere, like a ghostly presence looming over my bed as I try to sleep. Who are we to say where the past belongs? The past is defined as “gone by in time and no longer existing”, therefore, this tells us that technically we can’t leave our memories in a nonexistent space.

If we believe everything that’s defined for us, then we’re slowly killing ourselves. Telling ourselves to get over whatever that ails us, convincing ourselves to push those turbulent emotions aside and be done, is a means of self-abuse. It translates to the very fiber of our being that we do not matter, that those hurts growing over old wounds, are absolutely nothing.

If the past no longer exists, then why are ghosts living in the void? Ghosts that kill you and others around you.

Time only tricks our minds into forgetting what’s heavy. If seconds traveling through space evaporates the pain into something that still lingers, then is it really called healing? Where does unresolved pain go if it hasn’t been absorbed by the soul it resides in? It must settle somewhere that we can’t see, lodged in the in-between that doesn’t allow for anything unpleasant to grow beyond its confines.

There are those who say analog records just sound better than digital CDs or streams of music. When all is dissected, no one can really tell much difference. So why this media legend?

I've come to the conclusion that it's a biological proclivity, not one of perceiving fidelity. We prefer analog as comfortingly human.

Consider this: as AI matures, the "thinking" being programmed is that of "fuzzy logic," the back-and-forth between the limits that narrow and hone in on a solution. That is as human as the back-and-forth of our tympanic membranes, as sound waves (analog vacillations) strike them.

Thus, we are evolved for analog, yet we embrace the digital as our technology evolves. CDs beat out the hertz limits of records, so there the tech went. It is absolutely fascinating that the digital machinations are gravitating to analog, e.g., fuzzy logic, while our human endeavors are gravitating toward digital perception.

This is as ironic!

Analog ("wavy") humans are seeking the digital; digital computing is seeking the analog. So it is as paradoxical as it is ironic.

Considering my basis for this conclusion—hearing—we know that the movement of ear drums mimics (mirrors?) the oscillating waves striking them. These are fluid movements. But digital is not fluid. Digital involves delivery of all-or-none packets (viz., 0s and 1s). This is like the double-slit quantum experiment when a force is delivered as both waves AND particles.

We are creatures of waves; we navigate the universe on the tides of flow and ebb. Is it any wonder that analog embraces us better; that analog just seems friendlier? Is that why analog seems to sound better? Or is that it just sounds more human? More comforting? Like the nurturing of a lactating mother.

But what do I know? I'm a hopeless romantic, and that's how lactating mothers got into my rant, here.)

Don't misunderstand me. I like my "devices." They're pretty and they're fun, and they make the camaraderie of writing on such vehicles as Substack possible.

However...

I see a picture of a lover's respite under the tree. Now THAT is analog. I see a picture of persons consulting their digital streams. THAT is NOT analog. As we embrace discrete packets of information and abandon the wave of what's human, we venture off alone.

The time traveler is a term linked to an individual whose soul is capable of perceiving its being through multiple different time periods through the illusory understanding of a separation between past, present, and future. If this being is to travel to the past or future in connection to a period where the self is existent; this can be considered as to be the same person, both harnessing the same soul, the same self. David Lewis attempts to explain these cases of time travel using a logically consistent framework, one attempting to explain while lacking contradiction. He states the time traveler does require a personal identity, that the one arriving in time is the same as the one who had departed. This claim would quire a causal continuity of causal loops; the notion where events of the past and future are interconnected and create a chain of existence(Lewis 1986).

If Lewis’ argument of this continuity held valid, then the same soul could be existing within a singular time, limitlessly, although its experience could alter the state prior to which one had originally departed from. Let us take for example the situation of a man traveling back to himself in time as a young boy to warn himself that if he doesn’t finish his University degree, he will be very unhappy with his job in the future. This man holds psychological continuity with being a further developed version of his past self, yet is able to alter the experience of the present self by shifting the perception of the past self. These selves remain connected, and thus, if the man convinces his younger self to attend school, then this loop shall shift in the sense that the present man is now perceiving an existence of which he went to University and has acquired his desired career. It is more the question of; will this man have the awareness of shaping his present perception through the alteration of these events, or is there an instantaneous shift in which would lead him to only remember his past of going to University to create his present career? Could he remember a young adulthood in which we did not go to University anymore? Is there still an existing self part of his whole that is perceiving his life unfulfilled?

The time traveler term holds constraints to real world physics such as the Grandfather Paradox in which a being travels to the past preventing their own birth through hindering the connections of ancestors. While this notion has scientific limitations in that it would seem evidently impossible to cause such an event, according to the belief of these causal loops, one could easily erase this vessel, because ultimately they are not erasing the soul, only the conduit for the soul to perceive in such a way. The being that goes back in time to prevent their grandparents from meeting has now ceased certain biological offspring, as such the soul may then be inhabiting a different form of consciousness in varying positions or presentations. Based on the previous suggestions, would they be able to now remember the time of which they existed based on their grandparents, and parents, creating them as originally? Given the nature of our universe, it is unwise to hold this form of time travel impossible because we lack the proper evidence, as much we attain certain knowing of truth in our reality could be proven severely different to what we presently accept and judge this theory upon.

In this discussion it is also relevant to include what time travel is, and the nature of time itself. Through the construction and comprehension of our reality we have applied structural systems of time which adhere to our understanding of how our universe works. Our acceptance of time is one faulty as fideism, as there is lacking evidence to support the reason for why we have the clocks and calendars we do. To say it is 11:05 am is as one were to say there is one God and he has a long white beard and old wise green eyes. Time itself is illusory as the segregation of past, present, and future is impossible. If one is said to have traveled to the past; have they actually traveled anywhere, or are they simply perceiving an experience through a present link existing negligent of this construct? To say they have gone to a past time, is to say they have removed themself from the present time, but how could they not exist in the present or future if they exist in the past? If nothing is temporal, then does time actually exist(McTaggart 1908)?

If one is to close their eyes and think of a memory as a child, fully saturating their senses in this remembrance, truly feeling as if they are there-have they time traveled? If one ponders upon themself in five years from now, vividly creating a potential landscape of the potential future-have they time traveled? If our construct of time is merely an imagined lens in which the human limits its understanding of the nature of the universe, then the contradictions to ‘traveling’ through this concept of time are implausible.

Time understood as an illusion, and the comprehension of shifting experience through playing with this aspect of human experience could then be a much more common part of our existence than we are aware of. Perhaps we are always traveling through time, yet incapable of fully processing these shifts as our common knowledge of its makeup is refraining us to do so. Perhaps we are always traveling through time, yet as we make these changes are unable to remember doing so. If time is understood to be an illusory concept, then there is no past, present, or future, and there is no time traveler. If this is the case, how are we to examine that the current thoughts we have towards our past or future, are ultimately shaping exactly what is before us now?

Bibliography

Lewis, David. "The Paradoxes of Time Travel." In Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

McTaggart, J.M.E. "The Unreality of Time." Mind 17, no. 68 (1908): 457-474.

Papa Johnny come lately, (a married grammarian, and rectitudinarian, sexagenarian, solitudinarian Unitarian) to the pizza party at Little Caesars of social media after nothing but lovely pizza bones left, but hoop fully can coax (seal) a mutually beneficial reciprocity.

Where no amount of collusion can Lyft my natural tentative Uber Vudu wired yik yak zen based deep fried Googly eyed Hulu (indeed) jibber jabber ring kickstarting livingsocial Myspace! Thus, this circumspect, dapper, electronically fitbit groupon heretic individualist jangles kickstarter linkedin motive narrating outlook pertaining to various technological innovations suddenly become good and plenti during the latter half of his three score plus five orbitz, while travelocity on this oblate spheroid.

Unlike deux daughters, (the youngest merely twenty five anniversaries removed from her birth February 4th 2024 and the eldest approximately twenty six months), who both got weaned on the ABC's of computer accouterments during kindergarten, this dada Dinosaur quaintly recalls the old fashioned desks with inkwells meant for dunking ponytails. As an obedient quite quiet lad, no shenanigans, (asper dipping hair into unnatural shade of black or blue, and subsequently receiving the same hue SMACK a roo right in the kisser deftly delivered courtesy of strongest girl in class) attests his memories tend to be rather unexciting. Hence fast forward to this moment (just for an interim before revisiting days of bashful boyhood), and allow me to elucidate my affinity for prevarication, especially to entice the eyes of an unknown reader.

Thus let me return to sitting with perfect posture. The one classroom per grade little red brick schoolhouse (constructed by bachelor non E. Grieg guess Norwegian farmers) devoid of any electronic paraphernalia. Wick head looking candles illuminated each alcove. The general electric fan perhaps the only non manually operated contraption. Hardwood benumbed bumstead now replaced with comfortable faux leather easy chairs with upteen gizmos for the average student to remain self occupied, while the teacher absent mindedly fiddles with her/his handy dandy palm size sophisticated snapping, crackling, and popping wireless fidelity. No spoiler alerts during those primitive modes of learning preceding by decades before the advent of ergonomic, NON GMO gluten free global positioning satellite, posturepedic, hydraulic operated, humanized, mechanized individual hermetically sealed pods!

No doubt this old geezer would be like a fish out of water if brought into the modern twenty first century educational facility.

Every last kid would be tethered with gadgets, and attuned into a customized impromptu lecture accessing, allocated, assigned (for keeps) alien looking equipment to this Luddite. Blackboards (really unfractallated slate - now worth a mint), and chalk sufficed to teach all the then known knowledge to man/woman kind. Most pupils (enforced to address the head master or mistress, - no married women permitted) as Benevolent Sir or Your Highness (frequently corrupted to heiney accompanied with a twitter of titters). Strict adherence to formal attire naturally mandated insync with politesse toward figurative line with obligation to manners. Thus street clothes (pre torn jeans that cost a small fortune), beachwear, et cetera unacceptable.

Strict adherence to couture rules and regulations, would also count when report cards (milled paper) got issued for each one of four quartered nine month state compliance punishment . Upon reflecting the now every day (once radical, not far long ago within a nearby solar system of the Milky Way) Earthlinked digital contrivances adorning every Hotmail wannabe, those antiquated parochial teaching/learning environments did hold an avast advantageous candle box advantage versus the entire methodology inculcating young people how to function with an extremely webbed wide world, which paradigm an absolute necessity to become gainfully employed.

A touch of nostalgia necessitates yours truly to blink back tears. He found comfort holding and/or cracking the binding of bound printed material, though I must confess a strong dislike to the Dewey Decimal System, which appeared as Egyptian hieroglyphics. Aside from manually turning tangible pages (unlike Ebooks, which do not interest me in the la east), each well thumbed required suitably deemed reading topical writer , (which paled compared to discovering lesser known authors) also exuded an faint aroma, and hinted at a much simpler way of life compared to the highly charged (amped up) frenzy, where the transmitting and/or receiving bits and bytes a twenty four seven, three hundred sixty five day a year constant barrage of data packets.

When documents, finished processing instructions, knowledge leveraged courtesy various and sundry modes to assess comprehension, et cetera uploaded, the remaining leisure time undifferentiated as young people manipulate a cache of similarly wrought information (immense) applied to Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat,Twitter, the ever growing array of miniaturized bajillion lobbed bots, whose processing capacity mind boggling. No longer exceptional simply boasting every stipulated historical date, state capitol, sporting statistic, et cetera.

NO!

Now a grown kid with coding cachet, (even if just a hack rate programmer), self taught open source application contributor, entrepreneur billionaire fresh out of preschool, et cetera garners devotees as if he/she mystically endowed with inherently instinctual intelligence to rattle and hum off an algorithm touted as the next boy/girl genius!

Essentially das dada = codified bonafide anachronism

me thoughts infused

with thom hankering for yesteryear

circa antebellum i.e.

American Civil War era veer

rilly, teetering, smoldering, rumbling

upon iniquitous tier

United States greenacres crossroads

with petticoat junction spear

ritually hexed courtesy anti abolitionists

pitted against unfair

slavery, yours truly spellbound

gravitating, fixating, entrancing,

an invisible sonneteer

disembodied spirit transported

back in time,

qua closing first decade

of twenty century aware

how historical events will unfold,

yet lacking means

to affect alternate outcome,

though yearning to spare

fledgling democracy deaf to blare

ring coming fury me unseen

relishing preponderant naiveté

and childlike innocence

before internecine warfare

many stripling young lads,

yet to sprout facial hair

trumpeting, scampering, rejoicing

after favored lass with no care

gathering rosebuds while they may

before their brave hearts got

touched, torched, taxed...

with fire, ah... so cavalier

wondering, speculating, nursing

curiously piqued how adaware

those who frolicked

within Autumn mist did revere

observing what didst appear

oblivious laughter and attitude

analogous to good cheer

omnipresent at Renaissance Faire,

no doubt trials and tribulations

compromised welfare

envious countless scores generations

past knew not global threats,

nonetheless societal fabric circa

early/mid nineteenth century

severely wrenched when

Emancipation Proclamation didst declare

manumision, though sadly

blatant anti semitism, bigotry, racism...,

trumpeted within rank putrid odor

doth still fill the air!

And ignoble faux prize trumpeting hubris awarded to...

Bourgeoisie donning ersatz

overstuffed ego freezer bewigged pate

"FAKE" grotesque humanitarian

bribed corrupt judges will vindicate

jimmied cracked corn

land of "milk and honey"

red hot button he spoils to activate

countdown to Armageddon

leaving nation prostrate,

all the more reason to axe electoral college,

now holds electorate

hostage to bully tactics grate

for dead souls – zombie thriller, viz

Putin on the ritz,

whereby Pavlov's dog will salivate

on cue and pony show will titillate,

and worse case scenario, a far more terrible fate

than death by a thousand cuts

equals his refusal not to abdicate

presidency, should voters

get smart to administrate

White House with progressive commander

in chief he/she will adjudicate

decency, honesty, integrity... and acclimate

government toward amity, comity, equality...

oh,... and most importantly advocate

salutary measures affecting biosphere,

where industrialization didst devastate

contaminate by bajillion beings birth rate,

every square inch of Earth

Homo sapiens succeeded to abominate...,

prima facie global warming doth correlate,

hence primary requisite mandate

to reorient modus operandi no time to wait,

where carbon footprint negligible

still preserving technological paradigm

fixing low cussed electricity to generate

courtesy renewable resources

else man/womankind will become footnote

atrophied trappings agglomerate

twenty first century civilization

damned, inundated, ossified bridgegate

checkmated, choked, chucked... wag gone wheels

das spare - tread fully tires fuming primate

jammed fruits of loins going bananas

infuriating, exhausting accelerating

no exit (sorry Sartre) to circumnavigate

hardy lee any recourse to extricate

oneself from madding crowd

self resignation minimally doth alleviate,

whereby impatient broods frustrate

inaccessible jackknifed mobility,

thence spark ignites spontaneous eruption

impossible mission to plug

crowdsource mob frenzy translate

pent up fury once loosed doth degenerate

into atavistic pandemonium cutthroat rage

snarling human logjam foaming at mouth

poised to strike ready to decapitate

any remaining shred of salvation barren feeble

slow vac hoovering, milking, and sucking

every last vestige of bondage peoples extirpate.

Aforementioned conundrum hopefully satisfactorily explains basic damn irreverent donnybrook...

Hmm...before tapping into reservoir

marsh hill deep water

aye delta myself

if pond durable

stream of consciousness

possible mission freeze able...,

how shoal aye say...

je ne sais quois

carefully laying pontoon bridge

paddling, treading, wave ving...,

yet sound lee get straight to the point

boot ask cape ping drowning reader,

and/or my waterlogged

creek key noggin

into esse chew weary sea ping bog...

oar body eel 'lectric

grounded on sandbar

plain and simple, aye lake wordplay,

though this buoy doth struggle

floundering within metaphorical ocean

to channel meander ring

puddling, seeping, yet

getting firth hoar along

harboring kettle o' worms

that engulfs me

aware you well judge,

and let me know,

nonetheless herring ye ask

"wet n tarn nation

iz this lick spittle a boat"

yup...merrily to

causeway more'n a row

initially wake kind to trumpet

how current fishy cons pier a sea

the president touts

regarding the late Jeffrey Epstein suicide

changing figurative electorate channel,

which haint ni tide dee

Bill Clinton imbroglio

"apprentice" scathing

scurrilous distractions

so gull hub bull voters slough

off get complacent and risk

armageddon courtesy...

the Swamp thing

versus truth to Democratic power!

Is something wrong sir.

Yes, I often like to stand here and watch the people. I wonder what they think of me. Then I wonder what I truly think of them. Funny I can't find the answer to either one. Getting in their heads is impossible so it's understandable I don't know what they think of me. But I'm in control of my own mind at least most of the time. Yet I still don't know.

Well I'm sure they think fondly of you sir. You do your upmost for them.

Yes, yes, yes, thanks for the pointless flattering . I don't want you to stroke my ego. I wanted input. I mean look at them l, they don't know what I do for them. At least not really. When prices go down I'm praised. When they're increase I'm ridiculed. I mean a 10 - 20% increase and they’re damn near ready to revolt. Regardless of good I've done it only takes a couple bad things for them to completely turn. Makes sense most of them live a busy life. No time to think of the broader things. Why it seems as if they have more money lately, why things have been moving more smoothly in their life. They just think it's been a good couple of years. The most they hear from me is from their news networks and they hardly explain anything properly. If they explain it at all. Half of the news is meant to kiss my ass. The other is meant to try and cut my head.

Has the job gotten too stressful sir, perhaps a break would do some good.

No it's not that I just need to think things through. It's unfair is what I'm getting at. Leader of a country in any form. President, Emperor, Councilman, Congress. The benefits are just as great, but unfair still. At least when your someone who tries. But I can't deny I often make bad decisions. I make them purposely knowing they are bad decisions. The people don't know what you need to go through to keep them satiated. Invasion of country, international turmoil or pressure that needs to be aided or ignored. All to keep the peace. The peace here of course I could care less of others. Sometimes I think dictators have it right. But I can't shake the uneasiness of dead smiles. Could I explain why I started that war. Could I explain why I'm allowing it. When it all gotten so complicated that even I am starting to forget the reason.

Then people question my morals. I stopped making decisions on my morals a long time ago. Morals don't feed people, protect people. Everyone and again I get to make the moral decision, but because it's a savvy move. Not because of some stupid moral compass. I came into the game too late there are too many systems already in play. I feel as though my decisions are premade before I even get a chance to think.

If I could suggest something sir, you are the one in power now. Why not simply break the system.

Breaking the system would take a lot longer than I will be here. Even if I make a couple cracks in the road. The one after me, will find it easier to simply fill the cracks in than pave a new road. I would have to become something we vowed not to have. At least temporarily. Then I'd have to trust myself that I'm able to give it up when the time comes. But still that's more likely than someone similar to me coming in and continuing my work. Sigh, maybe it's better being a puppet, at least I know the decisions aren't mine. It's like customer service worker, it's easy to deny someone in need when you know the decision isn't yours. But the CEO of said company wouldn't be able to say no as easily if they were in that position.

How did they do it in the past. It was so much easier then. Less people, less money, less things to care about. You could generalize more things and more people. But now there's too many of everything, to many different ingredients to try and throw them all in the same pot. It'll just end up tasting like shit.

If I could interject here Sir. You say things were much easier. Do you mean easirer to manipulate. There was indeed less of everything and less education as well. The people could get manipulated into believing almost anything. Now there’s more information avenues, more education, more individuality. The people now need clear reasons for actions, unlike those of the past. Such reasons such as, they hate us because we’re free would not work anymore.

There’s never a clear reason in this world. To try and give it a generalized reason will make it sound worse than what it is. Simple answers always sound heartless and while they are the core of the reason ball. The outer layer of the ball is the reasons that will be tangible for the everyday person. But explaining those reasons are more difficult. To say we are invading another nation, because it will decrease the price of certain products, bring in jobs, bring in money, and ease a mountain of other things. Would need further explanation, which would lead to the simple answer. At the same time beginning with the simple answer and expanding it to the outer layer would need more explanation inbetween. Which is why we need the trust of our people. But those before me been lying for too long and peeling back all those lies will make the government look worse and lose more trust. I have to keep the secrets for the good of the nation. Once their trust completely collapse, what would we be? I don’t know the answer and don’t want to know the answer.

There’s a distrust that’s been created between the government and people. Clearing the air to ease that distrust, would cause more distrust. So, you choose to keep the secret. Keeping the secrets, doesn’t allow you to give clear reasons, and so you must manipulate the people causing more distrust. You seem to be in quite the paradox sir. When did it all start you think?

Probably once we gained real power. Once you are the top of the food chain, you reasons become unnecessary. But you must have them for the people to follow you. Nietzsche said morality is for the weak. The strong has no reason for it. We simply started imposing our will onto others. Gained control and now that we are weakening a bit, we are adverse to releasing even a fraction of the control that we have. Spreading ourself too thin. Our country is Young, by the world standards. Maybe we feel we cannot make a comeback from a defeat. Or don’t want to find out if we can.

So what will you do Sir?

I have a meeting at 3, a press conference at 6, and briefing at 9pm. I quick nightly workout, shower, and sleep. Wake up in the morning, I’ll still feel the same as now, and I’ll carry on. Because I’ve already gotten the job that’s all I can do. Maybe I can make a few minor changes that they will keep, but if not I’ve already given up. It won’t matter much to me.

Theres often a time in Life,

When we have to choose -

between what is right:

and what to lose.

There’s often a time in Life,

When choices have to be made-

You can’t have both;

its just a part of life’s trade...

And Sometimes if you chose right

And not take too many risks

You might find that

The safety’s shore is not too far from sight

There’s often a time in Life

When one seeks The One,

And these hard choices:

seem a lot more Fun...

Why fol low the rULES? of anything. Why write on a midnight breeze? Why sing songs of glory when we cannot justify peace?

Why do we sit here writing? when there s so much more we can do? Why do wi pass the time like'a sil-o-ette on da blues.

Why follow constructions! They'er just'a rule anyway. Why do anything? when it can be done a different way'

(everything I pounder in life-