True Time Travel

I have a time machine. It’s a true joy to possess and I daily delight in the extraordinary wonders it allows me to experience. I suspect it would be judged by some as less stylish than Marty McFly’s gullwing-doored DeLorean, or less beautiful than HG Wells’ time traveller’s machine of nickel, ivory and crystal but it is perhaps somewhat easier to maintain and pilot than either of those. But before I go into detail on its composition and the glories its possession has revealed, maybe I should tell you a little about myself and my more prosaic adventures in the quotidian world?

I have spent the greater part of my half-century and more of life fascinated by, learning about, practicing and teaching the discipline of design. Specifically, the branch of design concerned with conceiving and configuring human environments: domestic interiors, theatre stages, cultural exhibitions, exterior landscapes and such. Creating spaces if you like, and space, as any schoolchild learns, we describe in terms of the three dimensions of width, height and depth.

In the simplest terms, to design a room, the measure of its width, height and depth are determined by the placement of floor, walls and ceiling. Any moderately competent designer can select dimensions for these which would result in a ‘well proportioned’ room but it was Paul Jaques Grillo, in his book Form, Function & Design, who first made me aware of the invaluable importance of another consideration, sometimes overlooked, which is essential to embrace if we wish to truly design for people. He states, ‘No design is done strictly to be looked at. It has to be lived with, and there is no life without motion.’ He is speaking of course about our movement within such built environments; our travel through the three spatial dimensions – entering a wide front door, walking the length of a hall, climbing to the highest stair. However, it was due to my prolonged pondering upon this statement that I was made forcibly aware of another movement inherent in all this spatial activity, but which is frequently unseen or disregarded, and this is our concurrent travel through time – the fourth, temporal, dimension.

In physics, they speak of a mathematical model wherein space and time are combined into a single idea, the space-time continuum, comprised of these four dimensions, but what is perhaps not commonly observed is the curious nature of our travel through these dimensions. For whilst we can move, or not, more or less at will through each of the three spatial dimensions in isolation – forward or back, but not up or down; side to side, or remaining still – none of them are possible without, and indeed we can never halt, our also travelling through time.

We think and speak of time’s inexorable progress with terms that draw attention to change – the passing of the hours, the cycle of the seasons, the aging of our bodies – and it is this very notion of change which I believe lies at the heart of true time travel. Change, it has frequently been ironically observed, is the only constant – all else is in flux – but it is this very quality, it’s all-pervasive constancy, which makes it so very suitable a force to empower time travel. My time machine thrives on the ceaseless inevitability of change. For my time machine is me, my body and my mind. It is from within this imperfect body and with a curious mind that I take very real pleasure in quietly observing the hourly, daily or yearly evidences of change. Is this, my revelation, perhaps an anti-climax? I hope not, for change, whilst frequently seen as being a negative force, I believe can be pregnant with promise; I believe that to truly witness and accept change can be both joyous and enriching. Indeed I believe that it is only through truly embracing change, rather than struggling forever against it, that we all are able to genuinely delight in our journeys through life.

I am not of course the first to make this observation or come to this conclusion, and I make no claims of independent discovery. Many and wiser souls have preceded me and for their insights I am indeed indebted. And their secret, if such it can be called when it is wholly on display, though perhaps seldom recognised, is the seemingly simple act of assuming stillness in the three spatial dimensions. As delightful as movement can be, it all too easily promotes an overload of perceptual stimuli – sights, sounds, smells, constantly assault our senses – and we come to associate our comprehension of the changing environment with our spatial movement alone. Our simultaneous movement through time – signposted with changes perhaps more subtle, yet equally laden with the potential for delight – can become reduced to the point of imperceptibility.

Stillness is essential for the true wonders of change to reveal themselves, for temporal travel to assume its perhaps superior position to that of mere spatial travel. As Henry David Thoreau observed in Walden, ‘It is a soothing employment, on one of those fine days in the fall when all the warmth of the sun is fully appreciated, to sit on a stump on such a height as this, overlooking the pond, and study the dimpling circles which are incessantly inscribed on its otherwise invisible surface amid the reflected skies and trees.’ And Pico Iyer, in The Art of Stillness, suggests ‘Going nowhere … isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.’ Being still; being in the moment; it is this which enhances our awareness of the passage of time, and which likewise permits a joyous embracing of the changes which such passing engenders – watching with pride as our children grow and mature; observing the wonder of seeds planted in our gardens producing plants laden with beautiful flowers and bountiful fruits; or even those changes which occur on a somewhat more grand timescale, such as an occasional fall of rock from an eroding coastal cliff or the changing course of a small stream - prompted by a period of prolonged rainfall.

To fully immerse oneself in the present permits a serenity and freedom all to infrequently encountered in our modern ‘constantly-connected’ world. We seem to be overly prone to falling prey to concerns about our future or regrets about our past – both of which in truth we are actually powerless to address except when they are (or were) our present. Spanning the ages, Augustine, in the fifteenth century text City of God, promotes the practice of ‘forgetting what is behind, not wasted and scattered on things which are to come and things which will pass away … and contemplate thy delight which is neither coming nor passing.’ Whilst in 2014, in the unassuming and insightful journal Assemble Papers, Australian teacher, poet, builder and musician Dominic Bourke is quoted as uttering the poignant and simple statement ‘I lose time sitting at this desk and it’s a sweet, relaxing loss.’ His loss, it seems, is also his gain, and so it can be for us all. It requires no effort and that is, irrationally, precisely why we find it so hard. We have come to believe that we are judged by others - and indeed we have learned to value our own worth - upon our ‘worldliness’; knowledge and experience gained by our globe-trotting excursions. We have bought into the modern obsession with travel in the spatial realm; flying to holiday in exotic locales; partaking in history tours visiting sites of cultural significance; joining throngs of devotees on spiritual pilgrimages, yet remaining largely ignorant of the manifold delights which already surround our every waking moment if we only stopped for long enough to notice them.

Perhaps we all should spend a great deal more of our time (and a great deal less of our money) traveling, with stillness, through time alone. Our carbon footprints could become reduced to the scale of those of a mouse, whilst our serenity and joy might grow to the size of the mammoths of ages past? Time travel is possible. It’s real and it’s tangible and it’s available to us all, at no cost beyond a willingness to be still and embrace its wonders. A daily minute of remaining motionless and observing the small changes within a favourite vista, or a weekly half-hour of quiet reflection on your children’s achievements. Perhaps simply an annual delight in the growth of the plants in your garden.

When next you consider some travel, consider this – would you perhaps enjoy life’s journey more if you simply set aside some time to stay, perceptually alert yet bodily at ease, right where you already are?

• Finalist in New Philosopher Writers’ Award VIII: Travel

Today ...

Today you feel the need for some fresh air and cool shade and decide to sit calmly, pensively, on the bed of pale-brown fallen needles under the majestic spires of your favourite grove of Casuarina, atop the headland. The summer afternoon sea-breeze is cresting the cliff-top and whistling, sighing almost mournfully through the branches overhead. You let your gaze wander as it will across the broad vista, resting for a while as it encounters various objects, occurrences, or even absences, in the familiar scape. A small yacht under spinnaker cleaves with ease the gentle ocean swell on its journey south, perhaps heading to the safety of the harbor for the approaching evening – reminding you of the joys of piloting just such a small craft across the numerous bays, inlets and open reaches of your childhood adventures. A bright scar on the adjacent headland’s precipitous vertical face encourages your gaze to explore the sands and lapping waves at its foot – confirming your suspicions when you spot the scattering of sharp-edged boulders – a rock-fall overnight occasioned perhaps by the previous week’s heavy rains. A familiar cackle of bird-call from behind makes you turn with care to glimpse the mottled breast and yellow cheeks of a wattle bird, regarding you with cocked head from a low branch, just beyond arm’s reach. And it is only now, your gaze brought to this new viewpoint, that you notice, almost hidden in the shadow of one of the larger tree-trunks, a small and delicate tower of smooth and rounded pebbles of diminishing size. Someone has brought them here, most likely selected with care from among the multitude in the shore-break below, and with a focused mind and a steady hand, arranged them with precision and simple beauty on the rich, damp humus – there to remain, or not, at the mercy of the wind, rain and passing creatures. With a soft smile and a lifted spirit, you stand and retrace your steps to the pathway leading home …

Today you sit in your home studio, a gloriously blank and stark white sheet of paper on the drawing table and a favourite soft black pencil in your hand. With, at first, a little hesitation – an almost tentative gesture – and then with increasing assurance, you lightly commence describing some outlines, nascent forms, across the paper’s receptive face. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the skeletal strokes gain flesh – surface, contour, texture, outline and shadow – they gain, almost, life. A creature, unnamed and perhaps unnamable, mystical and unknowable, has been born on the page and seems alert – poised to leap from its two-dimensional realm and scurry across the table to the freedom of the open window. You gently lay the drawing aside and commence anew. As the clock’s hands silently describe circle after circle, in mimicry of the sun tracing across the vault of clear blue autumnal sky outside, you continue to give birth to numerous such beasts and beauties – a veritable menagerie of wonderful yet previously unseen expressions of an almost impossible diversity of life-forms. Almost impossible. The thought crosses your mind that given sufficient time and circumstances, the blind and stumbling beasts of genetic mutation and natural selection could easily make any number of your speculative critters flesh and blood – or indeed, perhaps they already did …

Today you are wearing thin the polish on the kitchen floorboards, describing numerous paths between and around the various benches, sink, fridge, oven, cupboards, pantry – as you prepare a range of dishes for your guests. You have set a menu that includes many of your own favourite foods but which is therefore time-consuming to prepare. Hence the pre-dawn start and your welcoming of the warmth provided by the oven to offset the chill winter’s-morning air. The bread will need time to prove so you start with the flour, yeast, salt, water – precisely measured and gently combined in your best, bright, shining, hemispherical stainless-steel bowl. You scrape the sticky mass onto the cool marble slab and commence the lift, slap, fold – lift, slap, fold – lift, slap, fold. Working the dough and building the air and texture into the embryonic loaf. You enjoy the sound and rhythm, the almost pungent smell of the yeast and the perceptibly changing texture of the mass in your hands as the gluten develops and builds plasticity and silkiness – until, sensing it to be just right, you stretch, fold, press and caress to craft a small and soft dome – returned to its bowl to rest under a flour-dusted cloth. You next consider crafting an haloumi cheese – you delight in its tart saltiness and the almost comical squeak as you bite into the firm and hot, pan-crusted fried slices but decide instead upon the simplicity of a ricotta. Having put the milk on the stove to heat – lumps of cream floating in lazy circles and slowly transforming into bright yellow droplets across the surface – you reach instinctively at first for the vinegar but then a glance outside to the as-yet dimly lit garden confirms your thought that perhaps there’s a lemon or two on the tree and you decide to use their bright acid juice instead to commence the chemical magic of transforming the milk into the curds and whey. As it always does, the Little Miss Muffet nursery rhyme of your childhood drifts into your conscious mind from some remote corner of your brain – numerous neurons firing their electro-chemical messages across countless synapses to bring you this small recollection of simpler times. A bright, diagonal, tangerine beam of dawn sunlight suddenly bisects the kitchen work-top and you look up sharply – not wishing to miss this most glorious heralding of a new day – to catch sight of the solar orb rising with silent majesty from the cold grey mass of the ocean’s horizon …

Today you feel almost ablaze with energy and instinctively know that only a solid hour or more of pleasant physical activity is going to be adequate to the task of restoring your usual serenity. It’s almost noon but the sun’s heat is yet to penetrate the vibrant, new, spring growth crowning all the ash trees which fringe the bicycle path. The mobile phone in your back pocket has vibrated and warbled a number of times since you sent the text messages prior to leaving home, so you are confident that at least some of the usual Saturday crowd will be gathering at the café for their weekly lunchtime catch-up over fruit juice and fat, toasted sandwiches, strong coffee and buttery cakes. You anticipate with joy the various junctions along the path where they might be waiting to join the slowly growing ‘caravan’ of bikes and riders – wending their way collectively to the centre of town like the traders of old returning from their arduous journeys along the silk-road. It is the simple commonality that you all seem to enjoy – different occupations, diverse families, varying politics, faiths, wealth and sexuality; none of it matters – the shared passion for cycling and the shared table and conversation is what unifies you. All are welcome. All are generous. All are shown respect. All relax in this brief hour of ‘community.’ All are refreshed and renewed upon departing again to return home. You are proud and honoured to belong to this casual and ever-changing family of friends. It has confirmed your belief in yourself, and in the choices that have brought you to be alive, here, now …

Today you …

Self

In considering the self – from  a western, individualistic perspective – all too frequently we consider ‘our’ self, and we think of our self in isolation rather than, as is actually the case, as members of a community, a culture, a country and ultimately, a cosmos.

The inherent flaw in this mindset has increasingly led – within many western, first world societies – to a misunderstanding of our respective roles within our societies and an imbalance in our assumptions around personal rights versus personal responsibilities.

Counter-intuitively, for an individual to have rights they must first accept a position within a community, for rights can only be conferred upon a person by an external entity. You may have life or your life may cease, but any right to life or its manifold qualities exists only within an external construct or framework – a community who collectively agree to endow its members with such qualities or such rights.

Conversely responsibility, which at first glance would seem to imply a necessity for an ‘other’ – someone for whom you might assume a responsibility for, or toward – is in fact entirely possible in isolation. The brash or assertive statements ‘I can take care of myself’ or ‘I am in search of my true self’, which might suggest a stance of responsibility within a broader community, are in reality announcements of having adopted a position of self gratification or even self aggrandisement – positions that are entirely conceivable in isolation. And therefore, a denial of the reality of our existence within a community.

So how might we better consider our ‘self’? How might we envision a picture of reality wherein the apparent contradictions of personal rights and community responsibilities become void? Is this seeming contradiction actually born of our misperception of our ‘self’ being apart from, rather than a part of, a greater whole?

In truth, the quest for self, in isolation, is the pursuit of a phantom. ‘Self’ exists only as the corollary of ‘other’. As night is to day, hard to soft, high to low – self is to community. The one is only possible in the context, the presence of, the other. And it is only in combination that they become ‘whole’. Unity, though it is linguistically derived from unit, or one, is not a condition of isolation or individuality but is the unity of collectiveness – the warm and strong embrace of community. So a true search for self cannot be a search solely for personal goals and gains but should, or indeed can only, be a search for how we might best contribute to, and become a valued part of, a greater whole – an aggregate of unique and uniquely skilled, experienced, knowledgeable and collaboratively minded contributors to a collectively empowered society.

This is essentially a Daoist perspective and it highlights the principle distinction between traditional notions of Western versus Eastern modes of thought or philosophy and their apparent preferences for, respectively, language versus action as defining realisations of their ‘contrary’ positions. The Western search for self or meaning is famously fond of convoluted language, discourse and argument – whereas Daoist thought, though often recorded in written form, is equally notorious for its mistrust of language and prefers instead an immersion in the moment or ‘being in flow’. Action as a statement of belief and action as an indication, to others, of our individual worth.

Before we can speak of and demand rights, we must therefore first become a valued member of a community by demonstrating our worth through our responsible actions. Through a heartfelt embracing of our communal responsibilities, we become respected as contributors to a greater and better unified whole and thereby deserving recipients of conferred rights. A righteous community is indeed principally comprised of an aggregation of its collective individuals’ assumption of, in the first instance, personal responsibility.

Moreover, this is a notion with ‘scalability’. As an individual gains rights and respect through their responsible contributions to their community or society, so that community likewise gains recognition and respect through their responsible contributions to their state or nation – and nations through their responsible contributions to international or global concerns and needs.

We none of us exist in isolation. Through apparently ‘self’-less assumption of responsibilities to a greater ‘whole’ we in reality benefit immeasurably as individuals via the collective conferring of rights and privileges by the manifold communities we inhabit. Through knowing our value as contributors we gain an understanding of our worth as individuals and truly come to know our ‘self’.