Time is an illusion.

Three Months ago I was happy.
Ten weeks ago I was in shock
Two months ago I was alone.
One month ago I was jealous.
Two weeks ago I was alone.
Two nights ago I was in shock.
Now I am Happy.

The present seems to last forever. I am reminded of George Orwell's 1984, which i haven't read since sixth grade. In it The protagonist's home country is aligned with another and enemies against another. He says it has always been so and will always be so. Later the allegiance shifts and the other two countries switch positions. The protagonist again states that it has always been this way and always would. Forever and Never are the same thing. Memory is our pretending that we fell different than we do now. Kurt Vonnegut wrote of a man who, when enjoying life, would exclaim "Somebody shoot me while I'm happy!" Jasper Fforde wrote of what fictional characters' lives might be like, having existence only in what has been written, all of the mundane detail ignored, being able to relive any moment you chose and choosing both the happy and sad so as to appreciate both. Doctor Manhattan in the graphic novel Watchmen could see his time outside of itself, experienced everything that had happened to him as well as everything that would happen to him. He understood everything but even his reactions of surprise were preprogrammed. He was a fixed point in time while all of us just washed around him. At least that's what we thought was happening. That was how we saw it. Because time is constant we can't see that it's changing. we are traveling through time into the future right now at a temporal speed of exactly one second per second. we think about our future and we make plans, and those plans eventually come to fruition and become something in our past and no longer our future or even our present. The present is now, the present is infinitely small and it goes on forever. The past is huge and just as long as the present. The future is unknown an always moving quickly towards us, but we overdrive our headlights so that when we see something by the time we register it, it has moved into out present or even our past. Embrace the present before it becomes your past. I understand the Absurdist playwrights now. Many things they wrote were cyclical, they repeat the same things over and over again, and nothing really changes *cough*Beckett*cough* As shown in my little poem up there life goes in circles, we find ourselves doing the same things and experiences. There is nothing new under the sun. This planet has 6 Billion people on it so if something happens to one in a million people 6,000 people have experienced it. There are 6,000 people at my local high school. The things that are more common are even more so, but that's OK. All we can do is hope a bluebird sings its song. The moments that last forever don't and time is still walking no matter how much fun is being had. You can't save time and keep it somewhere until you need it, you just have to use it as best as you can. The man who told that to me died a few months later.

Somebody shoot me while I'm happy!

EDIT: I've realized that the above post is part of why I keep this blog. When all we have of our past is our memory then it's not real. Memories can change to fit what we want. Eyewitness accounts are no longer viable testimony because of this. But here I have a written record of what I am feeling and doing in this eternal present.

EDIT II: When i started this i wanted to point out how the past week is an example of how time is weird. Just look at my post from last Saturday, and you can see that what was then is not now, but then it was now. Follow that? Good, explain it to me.

EDIT III: (This should be the last one) A quote from Groucho Marx - “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.”  ¶ 4/01/2007 03:06:00 PM