|
PETER
KING'S PHILOSOPHICAL MUSINGS
I am
something of a
philosophical chap and I like to think about things that normal people
wouldn’t
normally think of. I was out with a
lady and she asked where I was when I was quiet. Well, working on
another philosophical
problem of course!
Why simply torture my dates with these ideas when I can harm a much
larger
audience through the internet!
The City
Planners
Secret Handbook,
A Guide to Finding Your Next Home
***click here!***
Time is Not Linear (powerful events are
like lighting strikes)
More
than 10 years ago, I had a
very vivid dream of
walking down the street of neighborhood were I grew up in Englewood, CO. I came across a monument in the ground. Not
so much like a tombstone, but more like a historic marker of some kind,
made of
stone and/or metal. It had my name on
it and it had two dates on it (just the year) 1988 and 2008. I thought about that dream for a while,
thinking to myself that perhaps that’s when I would move back (since
1988 is
when I left). I gave up on that thought
since I always felt like I have already put up with enough snow, cold,
sunless
skies, waterless landscapes, and MTBE for one lifetime.
So after a few years I forgot about this
dream. My father died in July of 2006
and I went looking for his will shortly after his death.
His will stated that he wanted his ashes
spread up in Estes Park, CO. 2006 was a
tough year for me and going to CO in that year was not possible. 2007 came and went in a blur and I was
training
hard that summer for a national rowing competition in Oak Ridge
Tennessee (I
had no intention of going to CO any other time of the year). I realized that 2008 would have to be the
year I would go to spread his ashes. Now its 2008 and I remembered that
dream I
had more than a decade ago. I suppose
it could be coincidence. But why have a
dream about 2008 sometime in the mid 1990’s? And why going back to
where I grew
up? It started me thinking that time is
not linear its more like a fabric, that when you pull really hard on
one end
its bound to upset something on the other end. Another
analogy I thought of is that major events of
life that evoke
strong emotional responses are like strikes of lightning, and like
lightning
strikes, they send out a thin static charge and “touch” the spot they
are going
to strike before the actual bolt lands on the ground.
So the strike location is inevitable its just a
matter of time
before the bolt follows.
The “Real” Reason
for
Nostalgia
Why do
we always think the past is
better than the
present? Or that somebody from our past, like and ex girlfriend, is
always so
great. We always wonder what went wrong
and we want to fly back in our DeLorean and make everything right. Tell that girl you’ll never let her go, do
everything in your power to go back to your proper destiny. Well, if things aren’t going the way you’d
like in your life right now, then you need something to hold onto. But it goes beyond that. If
have lost your job, your fiancé moves
out, lose half your stuff, your aunt moves in with you, and your car
gets
totaled, and you have no love in your life (all within 12 months by the
way),
your going to need something to look back at to vindicate the fact that
you
exist and breath air. You can say, Hey
I did have a successful loving relationship and I did have this, I did
that,
and whatever. If you cant say that then
you’ve passed all these years and have nothing to show for it! Who’s going to admit that!
When I had this epiphany,
I
wondered why it didn’t make
me sad. But I think the realization
that it was so true was very liberating. The liberation made up for the
dispelling of all my glorious history. Actually,
like most of life, it’s a laugh. Come back
you coward, I can still bite you!
|
