Wednesday, October 03, 2012

In what distant deeps or skies

Just as I was – for the first time in my life, too, as far as I can recall; so that really is something, no? – beginning to explore the possibilities of cut-up writing, someone (from India, no less) had stumbled here at my House of Future and Past, seeking to view past my future.

Okay, so it isn't quite a cut-up from my blog's name. But isn't that a great expression? To view past one's future. Where does that all lie, then, the places even further than your future, your future being – in this instance – merely something you wish to view past, to see the unexplored terrain (desert? savannah? taiga forest? ocean?) in the unfathomable distance of time beyond your future?

Do you find that time, when imagined like this, takes on a spatial aspect? Maybe that's the mind trying to compensate, spatial distance being easier to comprehend than temporal. I certainly can see-imagine there being far-away places of time past my future. In a sense not unlike the way I (as most likely everyone) viewed cloudscapes as landscapes of a more surreal kind.

Thank you, whoever you were from India – that was really lovely. Hope you got to view past your future.

I am not going to give up on the Sebaldian Austerlitz feel in a hurry.

2 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

Oh yes, yes - and isn't it said by some esoterically-minded peeps that past/present/future is all laid out, as 'twere - all there? And now I think that this is perhaps why I do love being on an aeroplane (after the airport faff which I loathe), looking out at a view like this. A sense of being lifted out of the usual time-limited constraints. Cloudscapes offer a surreal landscape in which I feel oddly at home.

(I'm quite sure the Blogistasi have noted your label with approval).

Anna MR said...

Now I'm just wondering whether you are referring to me with the "esoterically-minded peeps", and if so, are you doing so intentionally. For I have toyed with the idea of viewing existence as happening all simultaneously – the analogy being like the score of an orchestral piece. The score is always there, complete, every note; but because we only know how to perceive the music in chronological order of "from the beginning of the score to the end of the score", that's how it is experienced by us (rather than a gigantic ta-daam, every note played simultaneously). And so, you see, because we can only experience existence temporally, that' show we experience it – rather than every moment as a great big simultaneous ta-daam.

Now please, I've no idea whether I actually think that – as I said, it's a possibility I've toyed with.

I loathe flying with a vengeance - apart from when we're cruising safely and looking down at the gorgeous world and cloudscapes and stuff. Airport faff? Major annoying shite. Landings? Baaaad. Takeoffs? Nightmare. But cruising? I can do…

I am writing to you from the university, no less. And now I have a logic exercise class to attend. I couldn't do my assignment properly this time. Oi vei, this is where it starts again…

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