The mystery of time

The mystery of time

Posted on July 20th, 2010 by Frank Wilson

In the July 14 issue of the Times Literary Supplement, David Wheatley begins his review of Letters of Louis MacNeice by noting that “the Greeks thought of the past as stretching out before them while the future waited behind their backs.”

I am not sure if I ever knew this, and had long since forgotten it, but I do know that I have often thought this way. It has long seemed to me that when we are born we get in line behind all those who are already here, and those who come after get in line behind those of us who have already arrived.

This is but one of a number of odd ways I have of looking at time. I also have this notion that we really only experience one full year of life — our first. Our second year represents one-half of our lives up to that time, our third year a third, and so on. I am now living one-sixty-ninth of my life. This, I think, explains why time seems to go faster the older we get.

Time is the measure of duration, which is characterized by change, often not for the better. Things wear out the longer they go on. I was astonished recently to come upon a picture of myself from 12 years ago. My hair was still dark brown, my beard but a mix of brown and gray. Now the beard is white and the hair is gray tending to white.

Yet people still tell me I look younger than my years. If this be so, it must be because I still walk with a youthful swagger: I don’t feel old yet.

I am listening just now to a recording of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. My first recording of this was by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Philippe Entrement as the soloist. At the time it was made, I believe, Entremont was a very handsome young man in his 20s. He is now a portly gentleman of 76. Looking at a photo of him as he looks today it is impossible to see any trace of the dashing young man he once was.

One of the characters in Strindberg’s great play The Ghost Sonata is called the Mummy. She once was a beautiful young woman. In fact, a statue of her as she was when she was young and beautiful is on display in the house where the action takes place. The Mummy herself, however, old and wizened beyond recognition, now lives hidden away in a closet. At one point the Student, who is the play’s protagonist, encounters her looking at the statue. He is stunned to learn that the statue is she as she once was. “Yes,” she tells him, “life does that to us.”

It is an unforgettable scene.

The Greeks’ view of time goes a long way toward explaining why the passage of time so often takes us by surprise: It is creeping up on us from behind.

And then … there is that feeling we have, when we think over our lives, that less and less of it is before us and more and more behind. Past and future alike creep up on us from behind.

What I find interesting in all of this is the metaphors we use for time. The Greeks were right, of course: We enter upon a show that has been going on long before we made our entrance and will likely continue going on for a good long time after we have made our exit.

On the other hand, once we make that entrance, we go off on our own and the metaphor shifts from an event we have joined to a journey we are taking.

All of this makes clear only one thing: That time, the measure of our living duration, is peculiarly mysterious, and that its mystery mirrors the mystery of being in the first place.