The Passage of Time

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Who am I? 

With a persistence bordering on harassment, the philosopher in me questions the validity of my identity time after time. He wonders if my life as he saw it can be attached to any substantial meaning or value. He wonders if the human existence is without bounds and thus continues without end. He wonders if time and space is infinite. He wonders if even my most insignificant actions, can cause a turbulent ripple in this existence. He wonders if humans really have total control of their actions. He wonders why humans are terrified of the unknown, fear what they don't comprehend and detest what they can't subdue, when they could simply embrace it. He wonders if he'll ever find answers to all these questions which lay beyond the limit of the human assimilation. He wonders if he will ever find solace by dispelling these cancerous mysteries that will forever consume the likes of him.

After careful consideration, he reached the conclusion that it is within the boundaries of acceptability to conclude that the nature of our existence is a case too bizarre for characterization. He is also of the opinion that the simplicity of my daily activities has caused me to take my existence for granted, and because of that, he coaxes himself out of that illusion, just to delve into that intense state of existential awareness. While immersed in the unquestionable mystery of that awareness, he wonders how everything in our world came into existence. He wonders why anything in the first instance, should exist at all. He wonders why humans and every other thing exist rather than nullity. He wonders why we are governed by such exquisite and precise laws. He wonders why philosophers like himself have come up with the notion that our existence appears the way it does by virtue of our presence as observers within it, a suggestion which according to him, has this funny tautological ring to it.

Sometimes he wonders if the world as I knew it really exist. He wonders if what I see around me is real and not some grand illusion designed by an unseen force. He wonders if humans weren't a virtual representation or physical manifestation of an unknown and egoistical entity that prides itself on being vain and thus forgets that we are modeled in its own imago. But then again, he also wonders if humans aren't but almost inconsequential in the scheme of things, and thus a mere play thing that should be tolerated because of the little part they play in a grander plot. He wonders if this incredible force was strong enough to shatter the force of good and evil in one swift strike. He wonders if this entity or entities that have stood the test of time, are in a constant state of cosmological evolution or in an accelerated state of cosmological devolution or stuck in stagnation. He wonders if a supreme being exists. He wonders about everything, for he is in a constant state of excessive meditation.

While the philosopher in me ponders these life mysteries, the free thinker in me believes we cannot conclusively defend the notion which supports the existence of a supreme being or any other supernatural force. A conclusion the religious faithful would tag as blasphemous, the atheist would snicker at and the agnostics would readily subscribe with. The free thinker in me simply recognizes the epistemological issues involved in this mystery and the vast limitations of the human ability for a broader inquiry. He believes that we simply do not know enough about the inner workings of our existence to make any sort of grand claim about the nature of reality and whether or not a supreme being exist. He is more inclined to the suggestion that our world runs according to independent processes, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't subscribe nor isn't open to the suggestion of the existence of a supreme being, as long as the claim is backed with irrefutable evidence.

He also believes that we cannot know if human actions are controlled by a causal chain of preceding events or by some other external influence. He believes that we cannot know if we truly make decisions of our own volition. He is of the notion that, if all events are inevitable consequences of past sufficient causes, then we don't possess freewill. But if not, our actions must be random or filled with uncertainty, a conclusion he still believes doesn't do justice to the full parameters of freewill. Then science goes ahead and suggests that we live in a universe of probability, and that determinism of any sort is impossible. The different opinions and the complexity of the matter has left him so confounded that he sometimes wonders if he isn't immersed in a self inflicted state of mystification.

But then again, he also believes that if humans didn't have freewill, we would have evolved into a state of automaton rather than our present state of awareness. It is believed that awareness seems to be intimately and inescapably tied to the perception of the passage of time, therefore implying that the past is fixed and perfectly deterministic, while the future is unknowable. This sits well with his school of thoughts because if the future was predetermined, then there would be no freewill, and no point in the participation of the passage of time. Then it also brings into question the religious claims, that man had been granted freewill. If he who had granted us freewill is omnipresent, omniscience and omnipotent then he knows the beginning, present and future. This makes the freethinker wonder how man has been granted freewill if all our past, present and future actions are already known. A very valid line of inquiry he never fails to present.

While the philosopher and the freethinker dabbles in what most would perceive as having a certain ring of blasphemy to it, the moralist which resides somewhere in the deeper recess, silently bemoans human's greatest social problem; the distinction between right and wrong. He conclusively believes that we can never truly be able to distinguish between right and wrong when it involves human actions. It nearly impossible to devise an appropriate way to evaluate human actions and establish the most guiltless code of behavior because life is so unfair and complicated for a universal morality, an absolutist ethics or the successful practice of the ethics of reciprocity to exist.

The ethics of reciprocity which is also found in the scriptures of almost every religion, preaches the idea of treating others as you would like them to treat you. But it ignores moral independence and leaves no room for the enforcement of justice. Moreover, it's a highly simplified rule that doesn't provide solutions for more complicated scenarios such as whether ten men, who are more than deserving of death should be spared to save five other men or if one man should be sacrificed to save hundreds or if a human baby had more moral worth than a full grown chimpanzee. These are some of the complicated scenarios the ethics of reciprocity can never counter and due to that has been perceived as intangible in the mind eyes of the moralist in me.

On the other hand, the skeptic in me who is also the most vocal of the lot, questions the existence of a life which supposedly succeeds death. He believes that this fundamental question or assumption can never be answered. He claims to have reached this conclusion by briefly setting aside the proposed religious claims of the existence of an afterlife to take a closer look at the machination of our world. After careful observation, he realized that there is nowhere else it has been insinuated that another chance at life exists. So he is of the opinion that it is possible that we exist in such a way that our lives are infinitely recycled and therefore, we always find ourselves alive and observing our existence in one form or another. This conclusion is theoretical, but like the existence of God, it is one that science cannot provide a viable explanation or answer for. Therefore, short of the ability to communicate with the dead, a practice he lends no credibility to, he believes that we have no other way of confirming whether another life succeeds death.

Finally, I have come to realize that we live in a world where we all have different priorities, but share the same sort of goals. We all rush around in a beehive of activities but we never stop to ponder or even contemplate the perverse ways of our world. Some consider the existence of dark creatures and wonder if it still lurks in the darkest crevices. Others wonder if the scratching sounds they hear in their ceiling at night or the creaking of the door are the evidence of the activities of sinister forces. We all have what we doubt and what we want to desperately believe in. We all hope that our darkest fears are never realized and we all hope to live a life of complete tranquility. But tranquility can never be attained if we do not seek out the truth and once we discover the truth, the illusion of tranquility becomes forever shattered, a typical double edged sword case scenario if you ask me. So it is wise to note that there is a very thin line between reality and fantasy, and it is also from this proverbial thin line I believe the venomous fangs of paranoia are borne off, hence lending the "Ignorance is bliss" phrase strong credibility.

I have also realized that humans are so much alike but also share very little in likeness and thus see our existence in different shades of hue. We have so little in common that I sometimes wonder if we can ever really experience life objectively. For instance, I would wake up smiling because of the bright sunlight flittering through my curtains, while another would frown at it in derision. While I feel warmth and contentment listening to the sound of raindrops on my rooftops, some would be saddened by such miraculous beauty. It made me wonder why every person should see the world differently until I came to understand that the true objective quality of our existence can never be known. This is because there's a difference between understanding the world objectively and experiencing it through an exclusive and objective framework.

I have learnt that this is the basic problem behind the belief that our surroundings can only be observed through the filter of the senses and the study of the human mind. Everything I know, I have touched, seen and smelt has been filtered through a number of physiological and cognitive processes, subsequently making my subjective experience of the world unique. The only way I could possibly know otherwise is if I were to somehow observe the universe from the conscious perception of another person. This means that our world can only be observed through a brain, and by virtue of that, can only be interpreted subjectively. But given that our existence appears to be logical and somewhat knowable, I sometimes wonder if I can continue to assume that our existence's true objective quality can never be observed or known.

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Me, myself, I, the philosopher, freethinker, moralist and the skeptic share this delicate shell called my head. I really don't know how many others reside in there; all I know is that there is an endless struggle between these powerful personalities in me. So great is this struggle that I sometimes wonder if I may be suffering from an advanced case of identity crisis, one similar to what adolescents suffer, only this time more profound. This clash of titanic forces which constantly leaves me with a terrible migraine, occur in a bid for an ultimate goal, which I think is rational discernment. The struggle is so strong that I sometimes fear that I may just lose it and doom myself to a wantonness pool of abysmal emptiness. Other times, I greatly fear that I may be experiencing the early stages of subtle derangement. While on some cold nights, I secretly entertain the exciting possibility that I may be experiencing that horrible state of the splitting of the human psyche.

But all these struggles in my head hasn't blindsided me from the ultimate truths; that time lost can never be recovered and if there isn't time now to do the right thing, there just may never be again. So it was no real surprise when I began to feel the disconcerting whirlpool of the passage of time and the dizzying feeling associated with it. But what surprised me was that I may be the only one experiencing this feeling because everyone else seems oblivious to it. It is as thought they all didn't exist in the same world I did and therefore couldn't feel it. It's as though I imagined it all and because of that I feel like I am spiraling out of control in a black and murky vacuum.

As the days, months and years flash by, taking along with it several periods of twenty four hours I have mostly misspent and can't account for, I battle with this lingering bitter taste in my mouth and an unbearable feeling of doom which lay at the very bottom of my stomach. I wonder if at the end of my time which can be any moment, I can boldly say I lived a fulfilled life. Because I keep thinking that there has to be a plausible and significant reason why we exist, other than copulating and multiplying. I believe that we cannot just have existed because our world was a darn empty void that needed to be filled and taken care of. For if that was the case, the world would have been a better place without humans because we have managed to do more harm than good to it. You see, time changes everything except something within me which is always alarmed by change itself, therefore I have this biting feeling that I am running out of time or that time was running out on me. It is followed by a feeling of deep trepidation that washes over me when I consider the possibility that I might be already too late in achieving my true goal. When I say my true goal, I mean one that has been dictated to me by the unknown, not my personal set goals.

And that brings me to this significant question;

What is my true purpose in this existence?

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