I will be here waiting to read if and when you do post it. Big hugs.

05/17/2015

  The mood is bleak.

 In January of 1898, newly appointed secretary of the US Patent Office, Charles Holland Duell, stated at a press conference that “Anything that can be invented has been invented”.

 This quote remarkable for two reasons.

 First, it shows a staggering lack of foresight. Keep in mind that, in 1898, the only human constructs capable of flight were lighter than air vessels like hot air balloons and zeppelins Electricity was a new thing that people were certain wouldn't catch on. Horseless carriages were still in the developmental stage. And wireless radio was still ten years away.

 Second, this statement is completely false.

 Duell never said this. Anywhere. Ever.

 The statement itself originated from a cartoon in Vanity Fair in which a gentleman is asking a boy for a patent clerk. The boy responds that he'll try to find one but it might be difficult because everything that can be invented has been invented. But toss that quote out in general conversation and anyone with a passing familiarity with US history will tell you Duell said it.

 I'm pointing this out because it underlines something you will see a lot of during presidential campaigns. That is to say, misinformation. Or, to put it bluntly, lying.

 This is not a new thing. Few, if any, political campaigns are conducted without smearing the opposition. This tactic is referred to as 'going negative'. Again, a sanitized definition of lying.

 The troubling thing isn't so much that it's used regularly, it's that it works.

 Listen to someone ramble on at length about the evils of the other side some time. When they finally stop to take a breath, start asking uncomfortable questions. Questions like; “Where did you hear this?” or “What is this based on?”, or “How do you know this is true?”.

 I say 'uncomfortable' because this best describes the lengthy silence that will follow any of those questions.

 You see, most people will simply latch on to anything they're told and repeat it as fact. Even if they have no idea where this 'fact' originated or if it is, in fact, true. Moreover, they mostly won't even care. I find this perplexing. Why would someone repeat something without finding out what they're saying actually means?

 Sooner or later, someone is going to ask one of those uncomfortable questions. Likely in front of a group of people. At which point it will become painfully apparent that you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

 This isn't an isolated problem. It's more of an epidemic. Seriously. Interrupt that person's rant and ask where they got their information. There's a good chance it comes from some unimpeachable source like Facebook. Or Twitter.

 So that's my rant. Any questions?

 Why is the mood bleak? That's an easy one.

 I have no sense of scale. This is not a non sequitur. I can't gauge size, or distance from an abstract viewpoint. I couldn't tell you how much the trailer of one of those 18 wheeled trucks will hold unless I'm standing inside it. I know what a gallon of something looks like when it's in a gallon container but I couldn't determine what a gallon of something looks like in, say, a bucket..or a bathtub.

 I just learned very recently that this lack of a sense of scale also applies to temporal distance. That is to say, the distance between noon today and noon tomorrow. There is no distance there. It just is.

 So something that happened in 1995 is just as close at something that happened yesterday...or tomorrow. It's all the same size. Everything that is stored in my memory is there without a date stamp. Every joy, every sorry, every gain, every loss, every horror, all right there.

 I have a hard time explaining this to my therapist. We spent a great deal of my last session trying to pick this apart. I acknowledge that things change. That things are different from when I last experienced them. But that's it. They're just different.

 I explained that I'm always shocked to find out that people have aged. I've stood, staring, at pictures of people I know from when they were in their 20s. They look so different, but it's still them. I could leave in the middle of a conversation, come back 15 years later, and end up confused because the person I'm talking to doesn't remember where we left off.

 Is, was, and will be are constructs of language. They're words used to describe a thing. But the word isn't the thing. The thing is something wholly different from what we use to describe it. So it doesn't strike me as unusual that something can be both a 'was' and an 'is' at the same time.

 In fact, in order for something to 'be', it also has to have 'been'. Each state is dependent on the other.

 What I'm getting at is this; the only difference between what is now and what was then is that I know what the outcome is. There is no space between those two states. I just keep experiencing the same thing over and over again like it just happened. Because it did just happen.

 The daughter of the king of Troy, Cassandra, was granted the gift of prophesy by the gods. But, along with this gift, came the curse. Cassandra could see what would happen in the future, but no one would believe her.

 Now why, you might ask, would the gods give this woman the ability to see the future then make it impossible for her to tell anyone? Who the hell knows? It's just the kind of capricious shit the old gods liked doing.

 So Cassandra always knew what was going to happen but couldn't do a damn thing about it. And this is the best way I know to describe what's going on in my head. I know what's coming because it's already happened. And it's going to happen again. And again.

 I don't like being alone at this time of the year. Because I'm the only person I have to talk to. And since I already know what's about to happen conversations are usually pretty short. I'm having trouble dealing with this.

 I wish I knew what else to say. I could probably use up every last piece of memory on my computer trying to explain this and never even get close.

 There is no space between anything. It all just is. And it's getting harder and harder not to get lost.

 The hands on the clock move. The sun rises. The sun sets. Another block is marked out on the calendar. The days are warm. The days are cold.

 It's all one thing.

 It all 'is'.

 Thanks for listening

CT, I'm thinking of you. Interestingly you described something very well that I believe my 15-year-old daughter struggles with - this lack of differentiation of time - and she has never been able to make me "get" what is going on nearly as well as you just did. She will have two hours to spare between events, but if the first event takes 5 minutes longer than she expects, she cannot grasp how much time will then pass before the next event, or whether she has "enough" time to still go there. 

Not quite the same, I understand, but the lack of concept of the space time takes up really resonates with me. 

As a completely random aside, a fun fact about me: I cannot tell time. I mean, I have had it explained to me 60 ways til Sunday. I was a math major. I get it - academically - sort of. But I cannot look at a clock and have any concept of what time it is. I'm usually quite wrong, and it's been embarrassing at points in life where, say, you're stuck in a room taking a test for a job and there's only an analog clock and you wear no digital watch. Oof.

Not really sure what one has to do with the other except I hope you feel less alone in knowing that I am ALWAYS glad to "talk" as it were, even about the minutia of my time-telling disorder.

Big hugs. 

Physical size is weirder - some things I'm REALLY good at (I can pack a car trunk or a freezer like nobody's business). Distance is not good; though I'm so nearsighted even with glasses that I kind of always blamed that. People are harder; except for extremes, I think everyone is basically the same height and weight. I used to lead Weight Watchers meetings and people would be really nervous because I saw their weight, but the funny thing is, it actually had no meaning to me - like, 200 pounds didn't "look like" something at all, if that makes sense?

That makes me happy, actually. I would be like, uh, better give me a football field's worth?