The Presents of John and Soren
By ice rivers
- 943 reads
John Lennon, rock idol and smart guy, once asked “how can I go forward if I don’t know which way I'm facing?”
I’ve got an answer for that one.
We’re always facing forward even when we’re going backward.
Soren Kierkegaard, famous philsopher and all around cool guy, once said “ the only way to understand life is backwards but we live it forwards.” (or something like that)
Forward backward what’s the difference?
We remember the past, we live in the present.
We don’t figure things out in the present, we dip back into the past...into our memories or maybe even our dreams and then click it all fits together and we come back to the present which is beyond our understanding.
This is why instant replay is shown after every play in the NFL. We didn’t know what was happening when it was happening so we’ve got to play it back to figure out what we just saw.
Last night, I was reading the intro to the Report by the 9-11 Commission. On that perfect day for flying, seven of the highjackers were pulled aside by as they tried to board the plane. The only consequence was that their checked in luggage wouldn’t be loaded until they got on the plane....the thinking being that if they had a bomb in their luggage they wouldn’t get on the plane.Further examination into that present might have prevented the unimaginable which would happen within sixty minutes.
Except it was imaginable because somebody planned the whole thing.
One of the things that THEY failed to imagine was that the flight headed towards the White House would have a twenty minute delay before takeoff. Thus they were twenty minutes away from the White House when the passengers took over the craft which they wouldn't have if they hadn't known the fate of the three other planes.
One of the highjackers on the delayed flight was so suspicious looking that besides having his luggage delayed, he was wanded. Upon further review, the security officer did a substandard wand job. Our guy with the wand thought he knew what he was doing because he had done it so often in the past but he misunderstood the present as do we all with varying levels of consequence.
I look back at this very writing and I kinda understand what I was thinking when I began writing. When I started writing this piece I was in the present and I didn’t know what was going to happen next...all I knew is that I was thinking about John Lennon.
Everything else is as big a surprise to me as it was to you when you read the first sentence which I’m pretty sure you read while facing the words rather than sitting on them.
So now as you get on with your day, rest assured that you are facing forward always (unless you’re doing an Exorcist thing In which case anything goes) and that you’re not gonna understand much about what happens today until you go to bed tonight and figure out what the hell went down so that you can be prepared to figure out the present for tomorrow which you won't be able to do until tomorrow night.
As for me, I’m gonna read this again starting from the top and when I get back down here maybe I’ll know what I’m trying to say.
Or not
etc.
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Comments
I took a bus to the past, but
I took a bus to the past, but it was too busy, I waited iin the present for the future to turn up. It's always empty.
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Ah yes, John Lennon-how I
Ah yes, John Lennon-how I wish we could have seen the future from the past before that day in December 1980--I truly enjoyed the twists and turns of following your thought process and found I too had to go back and follow it again from the beginnng but it was becasue I had found the concept fascinating- but I also have to say those facts about 9-11 were tragically chilling. This is a very well written bit of philosophy.
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Everything is out of date as
Everything is out of date as soon as it's published. Time waits for no man (or woman)
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You certainly had me thinking
You certainly had me thinking with your philosophy.
Jenny.
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