Does Time Make Us Forgive or Forget?Posted by admin on July 28th, 2009
“Now is just a little, bare, empty word in English, just a scrap between an ancient buried past and a starry future.” – Jay Griffiths, A Sideways Look at Time
As I look around at my support network, I notice that I have forgotten a lot of the reasons I used to hold grudges. People that I intentionally cut out of my life because of some disagreement or another are back, and I can’t seem to remember why I ever deleted them from my phonebook.
Or is it that the passage of time has allowed me to forgive transgressions that once seemed so grave?
I’m sure that embarrassment plays a part in this. Everyone does and says stupid things during their teenage years. My peer group seems to be growing out of the petty, gossipy stage and simply appreciating friends for who they are now. I know that I’m not the person I was at 17, 18, even 20. Surely, many others have changed and are ready to move forward with me into stronger friendships.
But is there any “moving forward” if time is not linear? We think about the past as though we are far removed from it, when in some views, it is just as real as the present. One of my favorite books, A Sideways Look at Time, presents a fascinating historical perspective on time and its role in various cultures:
Is time an arrow or a bicycle, a straight line or a circle? Once, time was widely seen as cyclical; the Hopi image of time is a self-contained wheel, the Gabra peoples of East Africa have the idea of finn meaning fertility or plenty in the cycles of life, and in Hindu thought, time moves in the unimaginably long cycles of the Kalpas. In the Aions of the ancient Greeks, eternity wheeled round over and over again, while the Stoics believed in the eternal regeneration of the cosmos. Aristotle said ‘for even time itself is thought to be a circle’ and Plato described time as a ‘moving’ or ‘revolving’ image of eternity. Throughout history, time seems to have been thought circular since it could not be separated from the cycling motions of the sun, moon and stars…The modern Western view of time is linear, moving like a ruler straight from past to present to future and in this it is highly unusual. (155-6)
I like the idea that time is a circle, because it feels more real to me than the old adage of history repeating itself. Each time I encounter an old acquaintance or relive a memory, I feel as though there is no distinct line between then and now. Then is now if it is defining my now.
When it comes to grudges, regrets, and mistakes, can we ever leave them behind? If we subscribe to the cyclical view of time, the mere judgment of things as grudges, regrets, and mistakes seems completely irrelevant.
It is hard to break away from the vacuum of Western life, that which sucks us toward some invisible horizon. There is no such thing as arrival, as being “done” with life. While we can morph into different characters over different periods of time, we just ARE. Even though I need to remind myself of this alternate vision of hours and days, it brings me great comfort and allows me to open up to today instead of worrying about what people once thought of me or will think of me in the future. This is who, and where, I am now. I am suddenly being stricken with the notion of that being enough.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:25 am
The upside of getting older, and there must be some to compensate for the downsides, is that the grudges and regrets of one’s youth lose their importance.
The writer who helped me to understand time is cosmologist Paul Davies. In understanding time I also got my head around concepts like the Big Bang and Infinity.
I’m delighted that Jay Griffiths’s books are read in the US. I heartily recommend her other book “Wild: An Elemental Journey.”