"Thought" in Black and White...

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why." - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

Trafalmadorians are aliens from another universe that believe that the earthly and, consequentially, human perception of time and space is significantly flawed. By earthly perception, I mean to say the socially accepted version of time and space - linear view point of space and linear progression of time. The understanding of the space-time continuum on Trafalmadore is that all time - past, present, and futue - is present now. They say that we view time similar to someone on top of Mount Everest looking at the top of Mount Everest. That is, they can only see what is immediately visible to them, also known as the present. The Trafalmadorians, on the other hand, view time the way that one might look at the Himalayan mountain range, and thus Mount Everest, from a distance. At such a view point, one would be able to see everything that is before Mount Everest and everything that is after Mount Everest, also known as the past, present, and future.

Maybe that mass encased by the green box is still in there. I mean, it did happen it was there at one time. Maybe that gruesome mass was never there. Maybe it simultaneously is not there, has never been there, is there, and will always be there. Maybe. Some quantum physicists maintain that there are an infinite number of universes in which every conceivable version of "reality" exists. So, on some alternate universe John McCain is the president, on another Al Gore won the 2000 election, on another Ross Perot is now our president, and on still another Michael Moore is the ubermensch totalian dictator of the Western Hemisphere. In essence, every possible way life could be, it is... somewhere.

Maybe.

I like the Trafalmadorian version better. When they see a dead corpse, they view that individual as existing in a bad condition, but that they are still very much alive in the past. They also believe that everyone has the capacity to see this person at that time when they were still alive. It is our choice at which point we choose to view the story. Either we can come in at the happy parts or we can come in at the sad parts.

I think myself a non-fictional Billy Pilgrim. You see, Billy Pilgrim was the main protagonist in a book about a guy writing a book about Billy Pilgrim's life which happened to take place during World War II. That book is "Slaughterhouse V." And in that book, Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time" after being abducted by the Trafalmadorians and forced to live in a zoo on Trafalmadore. I don't think I am unstuck in time as it were, but I definitely think that our conception of time is, at the very least, misguided. It's my thought that objectively (for whatever can be defined as objective knowledge) time moves forward in a progression like a string of beads, one after the other. I think, however, that psychologically (and, in effect, all that truly matters in the world is what takes place between our ears) we can be everywhere and no where depending on what we choose to look at with our memories.

When we lay on our death beds, I find it difficult to believe that we will step-by-step go through the chronological and linear progression of our lives. I do not think I will say that when I was five I did such-and-such, and when I was six I did thus-and-so. I do not believe that I will say that when I was 30 I made this much money and worked on these accounts, cases, jobs, etc. No, rather life (at least the way we remember it) is a fluid and organic recollection of relevant memories. When I lay on my death bed I will not remember my life chronologically, I will think of my life the way one would look at the Himalayan mountain range from afar: I will be able to see the whole thing from start to finish, though only some important parts will distinguish themselves in my mind. And I believe that I will choose to focus on the peaks rather than the valleys, the good times rather than the bad.

"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber." - Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

...The clear MRI rather than the one with the golf ball sized tumor in it...