The perspective of time and death (861 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.69 on 43 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Axolotl (View user info) at 2008-01-28 09:17:04 EST
---------------Pt 1: On the Passage and Enormity of Time--------------
Time is something that's hard to grasp. Every time you think "now," the second passes and is lost to history. Your earliest memories at the age of 2 or 3 feel like a century ago, and the future and your death seem far away. Fifty years might as well be four hundred years for all it means to us; it all molds together into a universal "big number" in our heads.
Four hundred years seems like a huge time period. Even a year feels long to most of us. Our oldest citizens only live barely 1/4 of that time. Using 400 years as an acceptably large unit of time (Quad Units, for lack of a better word), let's move back through the years of human history just for a sense of perspective on time. We'll start off in a nice even number, Year 2000 - In this year, modern man is thriving. America is rich, and fears little in the days before 9/11, and the rest of the world enjoys for the most part a good standard of living. Technology like cell phones and the internet are emerging and a global society is blossoming. The dawn of the new millennium is greeted with promise. Everyone on this sight remembers this year, so I don't need to go into it too much.
1 Quad Unit before
In this time, Shakespeare was writing and producing plays in London, Spanish Galleons were sailing on the high seas, and the New World was just beginning to be explored. Europeans were breaking free from the bondage of the Middle Ages and the average man was better educated than his forefathers. January 1 was only beginning to be accepted as New Year's Day in Europe. The English would shortly land in Virginia, setting in motion the colonization of the present-day United States.
2 Quad Units before
We're now 800 years before our present age. The Universities of Paris and Cambridge were founded this year, and the Mongol Hordes were ravaging China, committing mass genocide and rape along its path. In Africa, empires and great trading states were arising, while in Europe peasants lived in poverty and servitude under the dominance of lords and the church. The Chinese and Arabs lived in fairly advanced societies, though liberty was not a known concept. It was a time of religion and warfare, only about 40 years after Robin Hood had robbed the rich and fed the poor.
3 Quad Units before
On Christmas Day Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Western Europe. Monks in Ireland and Scotland were transcribing the Bible and all the history they could remember or create. Africans and Muslims lived in great Empires, enjoying the fruits of conquest and trade. Europeans lived in the abject poverty of the Dark Ages, the 3rd World of their time.
4 Quad Units before
The Roman Empire was crumbling under incursions by the Vandals and Goths, and Attila the Hun was expanding his empire. The African city of Great Zimbabwe was being constructed, and most common European people were losing the sense of safety and security the Roman Empire provided them with. Rome would be gone within eighty years.
5 Quad Units before
Jesus Christ was a young boy, playing in the fields of Galilee, and Buddhism was being introduced in China. The world population was between 200 and 300 million. Europe was falling under the sway of the Roman Empire, whose government was shakily making the transition between a Republic and an Empire. On the borders of the Empire, the barbarians and Germanians battled.
6 Quad Units before
Where the Walbrook joins the Thames in England, the city of London is founded as a small trading post on the river. Egypt was rebelling against the powerful and vast Persian Empire, and Athens had just lost to Sparta in a war for dominance of Greece. For most of the world, life was primitive, but very in tune with nature. The Chinese and Persian Empires ran totalitarian states that controlled the short and violent lives of their citizens.
7 Quad Units before
In Central America the Olmecs were building pyramids, while in the Middle East, the Assyrians were slaughtering their way through Syria. The Greek dark ages were ending, and around this time a blind poet was writing the Iliad and the Odyssey, and anonymous Hebrews were writing down the first books of the Bible.
8 Quad Units before
Theseus the great of Athens is driven from his thrown, and around this time the Trojan Wars were being fought. According to the Bible, Moses had just led his people into Canaan and founded the nation of Israel. The once-powerful Hittite Empire was destroyed, and all throughout the world, life was very different than it is today. For a good look at the mindset of this time, the Bible or other ancient texts are good to turn to.
9 Quad Units before
Egypt was thriving, but the Indus Valley civilization you all learned about in High School was collapsing. The Shang Dynasty began in China, and in America the Indian tribes were living peacefully and in commune with nature. The Hittite Empires begins and rapidly expands.
10 Quad Units before
This is now 4000 years before the present time. The town of Mantua is founded in Italy, and in England Stonehenge is built. Human life is brutal and primitive, and horses have just been domesticated. The Hebrews are a fledgling nation, and Judaism is a newly-born religion under Abraham, offering the promise that the Lord will protect them and their descendents.
11 Quad Units before
Pharaoh Pepi II begins his rule, which will last 94 years, a world record. In Mesopotamia, brutal wars lay hundreds and thousand in their graves, and in the Indus Valley a peaceful civilization has been set up with amenities like running water, postal service, and a written language. Sargon of Akkad is building the world's first empire. The Pyramids at Giza have been around for only a hundred years.
12 Quad Units before
Egypt's Old Kingdom is torn by war, and all over the rest of the world, people live in small villages and communes in extended families. The life expectancy is low, and life is short and brutal. In China, the first emperor is crowned, a line that will last for thousands of years.
13 Quad Units
The first dynasty of Egypt begins to rule, and the earliest hieroglyphics are dated from around this time. In the Mediterranean Sea the Cretan civilization thrives in large stone cities with high music and culture, before mysteriously disappearing, inspiring the legend of Atlantis. In Ireland, the 250,000-ton tomb of Newgrange is built along a riverside in Meath, oriented to the sun on the solstice, a masterpiece of stone age art, and truly a wonder to see with your own eyes, as I have. The Mayan calendar begins on August 11, 3114 BC, and around this time, Stonehenge is begun.
14 Quad Units
Man is just emerging from the age of stone. The Sumerian civilization gives the gifts of astronomy and culture to those that follow after, and tin and bronze begin to see use. It's hard to imagine life back then, but it would be very quiet. The sky would be clear and silent of any technology or machines, and people would know nature and family above all things.
15 Quad Units
The first civilizations are developing in Mesopotamia, and according to Biblical scholars, earth was created on either October 23, 4004 BC, or March 18, 3952 BC. What IS known though is that the earliest recorded date in Egyptian history—and moreover, in human history—is May 14, 4121 BC. On that morning, people rose all over the world, a much larger and scarier world than today, unaware that it was then that history began.
But history went on far beyond that single written recorded date. 25 Units before you reach the end of the Ice Age. 27 Units, you see the domestication of dogs, and the founding of the first town, Jericho. 30 Units, you hit what's known as the end of the Stone Age, when humans then began to settle down and begin civilization.
So out of the 30 units of modern homo sapiens between now and the Stone Age, we've only had written history for 15 of those. We've only had monotheistic religion for 10 of them. We've had the English language for 2 and a half, tops. We've had the internet for 1/32. America's been around for half a unit, and most of your lives for only 1/16 of one. Go back one unit, and you hit Shakespeare. Go back 30, and the world is pure, and unrecognizable.
Kinda makes you feel really small. Everything you've experienced, and everyone you've ever known and loved could fit in the space of a pubic hair on a sheet of paper.
Bright side, we've had lovable cute doggies for 27 Units, and more importantly, fire for 2000 of them, and have been separate from our Missing Link for 15000. But throughout all of these units, we're all the exact same human beings. If you took a child born five thousand years ago and raised him today as an all-American boy, there would be no difference in intelligence or talents.
Humans have looked, acted, and thought the same for 125 Units until roughly 50,000 BC. Modern behavior is everywhere, common to every human on the planet: burying the dead, spiritual rituals, tools, and other common denominators.
From these ancient homo sapiens we received the universal shared culture of humans: language, symbols, jokes, art, music, marriage, cooking, and all the taboos and fears that couldn't have independently evolved in each branch of humanity. It was in the Rift Valley of Africa that the first handful of humans multiplied and created these universal cultural attributes. You can blame these embattled, wary early humans for all your tics and addictions, because these are our common ancestors, the forefathers of all of us.
---------------Pt 2: The Dead and the Undead--------------
When I was 16 years old my great-uncle Jack died. He was playing the slots in Atlantic City when he suffered a massive heart attack, and in the space of a few seconds went from a living breathing person enjoying his life at the moment to a corpse lying on the floor of a casino, most likely with people trying to revive him. He was 81 years old, and a veteran of the Second World War. He had been shot down over the Pacific Ocean and stayed afloat in the ocean for hours until a ship picked him up. He had survived and experienced 81 years of life, and ended it all doing something that made him happy.
This post isn't about the afterlife, I leave that up to whoever believes or doesn't believe. This post is about life, and living forever in memories. Famous figures live forever in memories because their names never fade away. Abraham, Attila, Jesus, Sargon...
There's an African tribe with three stages of life: being alive, being a sasha, and being a zamani. The living ones are those who are alive right now at this second, and the sasha and zamani are both dead, but there's a crucial difference. zamani are those dead that nobody remembers, and everyone who ever knew them or lived in their lifespan is dead. The sasha are dead, but only half-dead, because they still live on in people's memories. George Washington is zamani. Your grandparents are sasha. Julius Caesar is zamani. Heath Ledger is sasha.
(Vincent van Gogh was a sasha until 1998, unbelievably enough. Wars can be sasha and zamani too:
World War I is sasha, but because there's less than a hundred survivors, it will soon become zamani. The Spanish-American war became zamani in 1993; the Civil War in 1959.)
I was born in 1990, and my Uncle Jack was born in 1925. He died when I was 16, in 2006. In his life he saw the rise of the radio, and the Depression, and World War II, and the television, and the man on the moon, and the Cold War, and the fall of Communism, and the digital age, and he passed some of his memories onto me. When I die (if I hit his mark, somewhere around 2071), will I have a 16-year-old (born 2055, will die 2136) to pass my memories onto, so some of me can live forever in him as sasha until he perishes?
If Uncle Jack was in the same situation as me, with a 81-year-old relative dying when he was 16, and so on and so on...it would look something like this, with me at the top, followed by Uncle Jack, followed by our hypothetical old dying men:
1990-whenever
1925-2006
1860-1941
1795-1876
1730-1811
1665-1746
1598-1679
1533-1614
In only two generations we reach the civil war, which could have lived on as sasha in Uncle Jack's mind. Three generations, you reach early America. In six, you have the colonization of America. In seven or eight, Protestantism.
Nothing is really dead as long as you remember it. I've heard women call on their deathbeds for boyfriends they broke up with 70 years ago. When I die, I'll probably think back to playing in my cousin's garden when I was 2 years old, burning my thumb on a stove, looking out of my bed in a new house when I was 3...I'll remember the love and peace of my childhood, my first kiss, my days in high school...my graduation, my marriage, my losses and sadnesses, and when I die that's all that I will have with me.
I came into this world poor and naked, and that's how I will leave it, but the thing that's different is that I will be wise, and I will have known and learned and filled my mind up with memories, hopefully able to be passed on to someone willing to hold me in their thoughts, and maybe occasionally think of me and smile. All of us will be sasha eventually, and long away, far and deep into the future, everything around us will be zamani.
-----------
This sculpture was made 70 Units ago.
User Reviews
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2008-01-30 08:37:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Will you hurry and fucking grow up so that we can elect you president?
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2008-01-30 01:27:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
CLOG DANCE FOR ME, IRISH BOY
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-01-29 18:05:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by firefly (user info) at 2008-01-29 15:27:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
neat
Submitted by Unwell (user info) at 2008-01-29 00:07:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"Judaism is a newly-born religion under Abraham, offering the promise that the Lord will protect them and their descendents."
This made me laugh, but I have problems and a weird sense of humor.
All around excellent post! Your insight and depth is extraordinary.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2008-01-28 22:01:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i was reading david sedaris today, and i came across a line that made me very happy. it went:
"so we decided to put Sadie to sleep."
they were talking about a cat but its my job as the reader to use my imagination.
Submitted by sadie73 (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:28:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:26:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Green_Ranger (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:21:43 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
jujing by this post i surmise you gargle lots of seman
your dog is ugly
============
Ignorant fuckwad review.
Good job, Ax.
Submitted by Green_Ranger (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:21:43 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
jujing by this post i surmise you gargle lots of seman
your dog is ugly
Submitted by GrinMan (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:10:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is the first review i've ever given on this website.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2008-01-28 20:00:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
dig
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2008-01-28 15:31:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I loved this. I'm a huge history buff.
Time freaks me out sometimes - especially when I'm stoned and I think too much. Last year barely happened to me.
Submitted by Linus (user info) at 2008-01-28 13:46:02 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
WTF?
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-01-28 13:20:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh yeah, bullshit.
"America the Indian tribes were living peacefully and in commune with nature. "
There are plenty of tribes that were quite war-like and there is no proof (at least that I have seen) that there was a period where they all got along peacefully.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2008-01-28 13:17:29 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I was about to -2 this with a comment about 13th warrior being less than 70 units old, but then I read the whole thiing, enjoyable.
Submitted by Jeanneee (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:59:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:27:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Time moves faster as you get older.
---------------
Life is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer you get to the end, the faster it goes. I read that in the Vent section of the Atlanta paper.
Meh on the post.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:57:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
-2 giants.
i almost actually -2'd this by accident.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:34:58 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Very nice.
You are quite the thoughtful young man...
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:27:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
i like to walk through thought processes like this. realizing one's significance is a wonderful thing.
now, do one on space, the universe, etc.
Submitted by RyuFu (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:26:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh, and the sculpture has some nice "swing low, sweet chariot"* action.
*quote stolen from The Office (US).
Submitted by RyuFu (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:24:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was pretty beautiful.
Submitted by zwerg (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:16:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Well written, and very interesting.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-01-28 12:00:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2008-01-28 11:49:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
like the indians, i count summers for the passage of time
Submitted by ConorJS (user info) at 2008-01-28 11:44:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I already took Western Civ.
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2008-01-28 11:18:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by AngryforaLiving (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:54:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:52:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/076790818X/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1201535456&sr=8-1
Submitted by Fartman (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:40:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
There is strong evidence that time seems to go faster as you get older. Say you are forty and you will live to eighty. According to one set of calculations, your life, as subjectively perceived, is already seventy-one percent over. This is the most disturbing scientific fact I have heard in a long time. Your last twenty years will feel like no more than thirteen percent of your life. Another set of equations, harder to confirm, puts the age of seventeen and a half (!) as the midpoint of your subjectively experienced life. Occasionally patients with extreme brain damage* will experience time as passing very very rapidly; the internal clock of one man seemed to be set at about four times regular speed. - Tyler Cowen, Ph.D.
*most uberites can relate, a few moreso than others.
The footnote is mine, obviously. Also, I've bought a Giants shirt which I'll wear for one day next Sunday, then I'll burn it. GO EAGLES!
Submitted by PioneerBill (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:39:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Thank you, my own Father died three weeks ago, he was 88 and lived through the same time as your Uncle Jack. Your writing helped me.
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:38:55 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
That's weird, I thought you were 17 like 3 years ago.
Submitted by Occams_Razor (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:24:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Really fantastic.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:20:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Nicely done.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:18:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is awesome, Ax. More please.
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
And now you're even older
You're older than you've ever been
And now you're even older
And now you're older still
Time is marching on
And time is still marching on
This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
And now it's even sooner
This day will soon be at an end
And now it's even sooner
And now it's sooner still
Submitted by sicosemen (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:04:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.bartleby.com/86/
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2008-01-28 10:01:14 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Also, in the Daily Battle for Anything Worthwhile....time is the treasure I fight hardest for.
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:56:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Should probably be ranked amongst the best posts on uber.
Sadly, as time goes on our lives on this website get saturated with goatse, bravado, and apathy and the internet stardom of dropping a negative rating on a positive post is more than those of a weaker mind can withstand.
thanks for the effort.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:51:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
3 Quad Units before
On Christmas Day Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of Western Europe. Monks in Ireland and Scotland were transcribing the Bible and all the history they could remember or create. Africans and Muslims lived in great Empires, enjoying the fruits of conquest and trade. Europeans lived in the abject poverty of the Dark Ages, the 3rd World of their time.
--------------------------
I'm not sure if 'the third world of their time' is all that accurate. Perhaps 'the former Yugoslavia of their time' would be more accurate. Also you kind of glossed over Chinese history, a shame 'cause all I know of Chinese history is from playing Dynasty Warriors.
Not that any of that matters of course, this was about time and all that.
Submitted by Ltap (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:46:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Have another +2.
Submitted by Ltap (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:45:47 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Beautiful. It's like the perfect piece of writing - it has conveys dry facts and makes them interesting and it tells a story, all with a lasting impression of awe.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:38:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*quietly reflects*
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:27:12 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Time moves faster as you get older.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2008-01-28 09:21:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
GO GIANTS