Last night I watched the newest episode of one of my favorite shows, “This is Us”.  I know, one of the absolute best shows EVER, right?!  The story is so unusual and the way it is unfolding, while guaranteed to make me tap my foot in anticipation of the next episode, is delightfully excruciating.

Every week the show somehow hits a nerve and I am immediately laughing or crying, or both.  But this particular episode last night included a comment by one of the guest characters that struck a sensitive chord with me.  It was something that made me start thinking about the concept of time.  The character was Sylvester Stallone and he was speaking to Kevin (one of the show’s primary characters).  The mere fact of Sly Stone speaking made listening to the dialogue even better.  He has an incredibly unique and mesmerizing voice.  He said, and I apologize to whoever you are supposed to apologize to when misquoting a TV line because this is likely not an exact quote . . . . nonetheless:

“Time is a funny thing.  I think there is no such thing as a ‘long time ago’.  There are only memories that mean something and memories that don’t.”

It was easy to figure out what he meant within the context of the show.  But more than that it made me think about the concept of time as it relates to my life, as well.

There are about a million quotes involving time.  Here are a few that come to mind:  “time marches on”, “time is like a river”, “we have all the time in the world”, “time waits for no one”, or “don’t waste time”.  We as a culture are most definitely obsessed with the concept of time.  Usually, it is about how fast it is moving and how the Hell we can slow it down.

There are also a lot of theories about time.  Scientists and philosophers have been studying it forever.  One of the most intriguing theories I’ve heard is this:   Time is not chronological, but instead all time actually occurs simultaneously.  These are the theories that suggest that the past, present, and future all co-exist.  That everything is happening at once, with each “time” existing in a different dimension.  An extension of this, one that Sly’s comment brought to my mind, is that time is reflective of who is looking at it . . . . it is relative to the person and their individual memories.

This particular idea of time being a reflection of memories is the one part of these theories that I can get behind.  That is, memories and the situations they encompass can be good or bad.   Either way some memories last and some don’t.  Those that last can immediately take you back to a different time.  You can smell what the air was like at that moment 15 years ago.  You sense the emotion as if it is current.  You can feel the texture of the sheets on your bed or the grass under your feet.  When this happens to me I feel like I am in that situation again.  The sensations are so strong it is as if I have been transported to an earlier time or, more to the point, like no time has passed at all.

I guess that the point that Sly was making and that sparked this speculation by me, is that maybe life is more about the memories you keep, and of course those you don’t, and less about the passage of time.  It is almost like the concept of time is just an illusion.  As if time is interpreted by each individual and is really all about reflecting the images and feelings that you remember.   There is something so sweet about reliving a beautiful experience through a memory as if it was yesterday.  As if there is no time just the experience that lasts in your mind forever.

 

P.S.  Disclaimer!  I am no expert on time or the way our brains retain memories or not.  These are just the ponderings (aka ramblings) of a pensive mind.