Splash No. 181 - What Time is it?
What time is it?
I picked up a book from the library that had been on my list for a while, a recommendation from a stranger on the internet, probably. It had a beautiful cover with short gold lines horizontally crossing a black background and a geometric sans-serif font announcing The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. It’s a peculiar book — written by a physicist about the science of physics, yet explored in a way that’s sometimes scientific and sometimes poetic.
When discussing how science is only able to represent changes, that nothing is a static thing, Rovelli presents it this way:
A cloud above a mountain is not a thing, it is the condensation of humidity in the air that the wind blows over the mountain. A wave is not a thing, it is a movement of water, and the water that forms it is always different. A family is not a thing, it is a collection of relations, occurrences, feelings. And a human being? Of course it’s not a thing; like the cloud above the mountain, it’s a complex process, where food, information, light, words, and so on enter and exit. . . . A knot of knots in a network of social relations, in a network of chemical processes, in a network of emotions exchanged with its own kind.
And he’s absolutely right. To think of anything as unchanging or fully static is foolhardy — even the trees grow and die, even the stones erode, even the ground beneath us shifts. So how could a person be static? Zoom in far enough and we’re constantly changing: our very molecules constantly being replaced, our skin cells blowing away in the wind. The world we live in has always been one of change, and will continue to be for as long as we trudge or skip across it.
The book is filled with similar poetic meditations on the nature of the world around us, combined with equally fascinating scientific observations and reflections (did you know that time moves more slowly at higher altitudes than lower altitudes?). I reflect upon my upbringing, the way I learned a million scientific facts in school and allowed them to craft my understanding of the world. Time appeared in physics equations, always seeming to suggest its consistency and constant forward progress, yet now I realize that time was always relative — incomparable between two locations, since time was relative to any given place. Relativity felt like an abstract concept reserved for the Einsteins of the world, yet now I see examples of it every day. Like, how could it possibly be December already? Why did time fly during vacations and crawl during meetings that went too long? How did the days get so short without my noticing? Wasn’t I just in college five minutes ago?
The simple world that I thought I knew is always crumbling. I learned today that camels don’t even hold water in their humps. The humps are simply a store of fat that they rely on during times of hunger. It’s an inconsequential detail, but how many little stories build up the way I see the world? Could poking holes in the little details make the whole sandcastle crumble? Or could they just be a source of new building material to shape a new existence? One where a focus on change makes the passing of time feel less terrifying, or could make me find it wonderful that a camel's hump is more like a beer belly than a water bottle.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - Indie India Presents Best Indie Songs of 2021 - I realized that most of the music that I've heard from India is related to Bollywood, so it was cool to see what else is out there!
ARTICLE - "Pokémon and the First Wave of Digital Nostalgia" by Kyle Chayka - an article about Pokemon and technological nostalgia by one of my favorite writers? sign me up.
POEM - "The Tell" by William Bronk - "I want to tell my friends how beautiful the world is."
With each day, we can move closer to a more equitable world. Reminders:
Donate to Help Afghan Refugees Settle in NorCal Mutual Aid Networks
Anti-racism resources
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Just in time,
Nikhil