Somewhen younger

The book I recently finished reading, Biocentrism, spends a lot of time reframing the habitual ways we think about time. It's been on my mind lately, trying to come to terms with, well, not being as young as I used to be. From the book:

Consider all the days that have passed since the beginning of time. Now stack them like chairs, and seat yourself on the very top. Isn’t it amazing that you just happen to be here now, perched seemingly by chance on the cutting edge of infinity? Science claims it’s a big accident, a one-in-a-gazillion chance.

I still feel like the young girl whose blond hair streaked behind her as she ran on sturdy young legs, with total unselfconscious joy. But today, when I need to hurry across a street, I can feel the effort to get those legs going even a little faster than my normal gait. In the morning when I first get up, I totter uncertainly on those same legs, until I can get them out of sleep mode. I remember when I would spring out of bed, and it wasn't that long ago, either.

The way I talk about time does make it seem like a train, using phrases like "back then" to describe the young girl in an earlier car, or "back in the day" to talk about the way things used to be. If time is truly infinite and the linear passing of days and years and millennia is created within our brains, what is the truth of it?

In reading the book, which I found quite comforting in many ways, I am beginning to wonder how I might reframe my mind to think of time not being linear. Lanza, the book's author (you are linked to him in that first paragraph), found a passage in Ray Bradbury's wonderful book, "Dandelion Wine" that says it perfectly for me:

Mrs. Bentley said, "Everyone was young once." 

"Not you," whispered Jane, eyes down, almost to herself. Her empty ice stick had fallen in a vanilla puddle on the porch floor.

"But of course I was eight, nine, ten years old, like all of you."

The two girls gave a short, quickly-sealed-up laugh. Mrs. Bentley's eyes glittered. "Well, I can't waste a morning arguing with ten-year-olds. Needless to say, I was ten myself once and just as silly."

"You're joking with us," giggled Jane. "You weren't really ten ever, were you, Mrs. Bentley?"

"You run on home!" the woman cried suddenly, for she could not stand their eyes. "I won't have you laughing."

"Good-bye," said the two girls, giggling away across the lawn under the seas of shade. "Thanks for the ice cream!"

"Once I played hopscotch!" Mrs. Bentley cried after them, but they were gone.

Although I might feel young, I am looking ahead on that linear time train towards the milestone of seventy. I feel a lot like Mrs. Bentley.

The other day I experienced heat exhaustion on a hike with my fellow seniors. It was pretty distressing to do what I've always done and have new symptoms that emerged because I'm no longer as durable as when I was younger. It was also distressing to feel so badly and know that nothing would do except to keep going until I got out of the woods. All I really wanted to do was lay down in the trail and moan. But I couldn't, so I kept going.

It would be so wonderful to have another way to think about time. Lanza says that time and space are both created within our consciousness and give us a way to explain reality. If it really is all created within my own brain, I should be able to find other ways to frame the passage of time.

We all face the same trials and tribulations just being alive. And everything that is alive must die, it's the nature of biology. God created me, and you, and the world. And we created the blogosphere, and here we are.