Friday 24 May 2002

Pic of the day: Our time is indeed fractal, albeit not a mandelbrot fractal such as this. But what we see depends on how closely we look.

Breadth of time

I realized that time does not only have a length, but also a breadth, and it is not the same for all.

I got an invitation to a reunion – a 25th anniversary for our graduation from high school. Or whatever one does from high school when one leaves. High school was a bit higher back then, not everyone did go to one, certainly not one so prestigious as Egersund Gymnas.

I kinda recognized the surname of the guy who sent the mail. I cannot remember for sure whether he was one of the good guys or the bad guys, though. Perhaps he was a socialist and heavily into pleasure drugs and pleasure sex, like the lot of the anti-Christian group. (That doesn't mean we didn't get along. Young people are flexible. And besides, it's not as if I couldn't understand them. Well, except when they were really drunk – they could be a bit hard to understand then!) But as I said, I'm not sure this was him.

I remember a few surnames, but only two of them I'm sure who was: Frafjord and Sleveland. I remember them as people I really wanted to have as friends. I think we were friends, too. There were others too, but I have forgotten their names, or their faces, or both. There was this smart and cute girl who I exchanged letters with for a while afterwards. She was nearly as intelligent as I, and about as mentally stable. (At that time, not very much.) I kinda liked to look at her, even though she was rather skinny and not well endowed, because I am physically attracted to intelligent women. And there are not a lot of them around to be excited by ... But I have forgotten her name, and she probably has another now, if she is still alive. I hope so.

***

So do I want to see them again? Not particularly. It has been too long. I think time flows differently for me. Five years is a long time. 25 years is ancient history. So much has happened in the meantime. And that's my point: I realized that I occupy only a small part of my own memories. Very little of what I remember is really about me. I remember books I have read, computer games I have played, programs I have created. From the latest years, I remember other lives on-line. I remember the economic policy of my country and others, their booms and busts, achievements and scandals. I remember progress in various fields of science, and setbacks. All these things seem about as important to me as my own daily life, if not more. I am just one little human, why should I fill up all my memories with the things that were somehow related directly to me? Why should I remember people who never talked to me again, over the characters in a well written book?

My time stream is not a trickle but a flood, and it swept them away. It's far too late to come now and ask me to throw away my time and money. I haven't seen them in 25 years and wouldn't see them in 25 more years, presumably. While I can be here instead and talk to people who are in my life right now. If you want to know me, or want me to know you, I am sure you can find me. In your own time.