Memory


I heard somewhere that were it not for entropy, time would not be linear for us.

It being linear is the only reason why we can anticipate or remember, and why those words even mean anything to begin with, and why those words are the same words only facing opposite ends.

However, the linearity of time is nothing compared to what the human brain does. It processes things as they happen, but it is only in retention and protention that it can understand what it processes.

In short, our minds are never in the right time. There is no right time. There is no now.

There is only anticipation or dread of a time that will end, and there is only memory of a time that has ended. The paradox in the entire thing, of course, is that without the now, neither of those states would be.

And that is why time hurts. We are in it, things happen the order they do because of it, and it is merciless to the last second, especially when one has to leave. It is more merciless because of things that will have to happen for leaving to happen completely, not unlike having to fall into queues at airports after you have embraced someone goodbye, and returning to the place where you can remember things from. That is when the most difficult things start, for you would have to learn how to translate absence into hope and not loss; and memory into anticipation.

For Tim, and time.

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