Time Travel

So before I get in to detail about my blog or my blue guitar that I purchased a few days ago, or about my incredible journey that my imagination took me on last night, explaining the intricacies and delicacies as well as possibilities of actual and real time travel, let me hit you up with some knowledge (from?)

1. My new year came before most of yours, which means for a definite period of time I was living in the year 2009 while most of you were still living in 2008. One could say that we were a year apart, and at the same time just a day apart, or better, a few hours. This heavily complements my theory of being in the future with respect to the states, in the past with respect to China, and in the present when it comes to good old Italia.
2. The Persian new year isn’t until March 21^st, which means we have a few more months until the real party starts.
3. I quite possibly had my most intricate and profound dream last night, or better yet this morning, and using the western christian (what’s up with the capitalization Word!) calendar let’s say that it is january 1, 2009, or 1/1/2009, or if we are doing it the european way 1/1/2009. There are millions of different ways to define “day” and “date” so we might as well start somewhere.
4. Time travel: all I will say about it now is that it can only happen in between two realities (the dream will explain itself towards the end of the email, if you choose to read that far).
5. I don’t expect most of you to finish the email, as I don’t expect to finish it. Let’s exceed our expectations.
6. I really like parentheses, and can’t figure out why.

I guess it’s time to go back to reality, our relative reality, that is. By popular demand and a quick and simple google search, I decided to create a blog. It wasn’t my idea in the beginning, but the feedback that I received from a few close friends led me to believe that maybe the internet was ready for what we do here, or in another way it was time to grow within and without ourselves and invite others to the party. I wondered about a blog, its crazy schematics and the way in which it worked, and after about a week finally had the courage to google it. Turns out a blog is just a web page, an online diary, a free way to email the internet instead of your friends, and in that case I find it relatively secular and lonely. I don’t email people, I rather upload words on to a webpage and hopefully people will find it, read it, and like it. Either way we should begin to start sharing and see where that takes us.

Another thought that came to mind when I created the blog was a secret fantasy that gave birth to itself a few months before: being discovered. I secretly (and ironically not secretly anymore) hope that some bored person stumbles upon my blog and likes it. Or maybe I get some followers, and better yet start a cult! (that thought process started somewhere and then took a crazy direction, so crazy that I didn’t catch it until the end; let’s try that again…)

Another thought that came to mind when I created the blog was secretly to be discovered, for someone to find me and then rush to Florence and give me a 10 million dollar book deal. Yea, that’s realistic, and pretty humble of myself too, right? Are goals and ideals set so high for a reason? Are we supposed to ever achieve our truest and most intense fantasies? Are we supposed to be successful or rather live in our own fairy tale land until we get lucky or die trying?

I would argue that some goals, albeit pretty realistic, are put in place in order to propel ourselves forward, for us to continually look to the future, continue the path, and finish what we started when we arrived here via our mothers’ birth canal. I still don’t think that there HAS to be a reason, but it’s fun to humor the point, since we all feel we have something that HAS to be said.

And that is where I run in to trouble. For me, and maybe for most of us, the future is always in the future (that is, not now, not yesterday, but tomorrow). I know it sounds rather obvious, but let’s talk about the linear definition of time and see if we can uncover a few traps that we (not time, as time is not at fault and cannot therefore exist without us. Yes, without humans, I am saying, time doesn’t exist) have unconsciously (or consciously) created.

A counter argument could be that nature has some sort of process, that it is not just randomly placed and running haywire, that nature, in itself, even has a sort of governing body and hierarchy, and so when we bring those ideas from nature to our own communities (which in this case would be unnatural) we are not doing a necessary evil but moreover trying to emulate the perfection that we see in nature. Since we came from nature, we are therefore a part of it.

One way to break this argument down would be to first try to understand the difference between “humans” and “nature.” Aren’t we one in the same? How are we possible to differentiate ourselves from nature, nature being part of the earth, part of the galaxy, part of the universe. Can we successfully separate ourselves from the universe in order to understand ourselves?

In this example it then could be argued that our cities, states, and governments are therefore not trying to emulate nature but rather a part of our own human nature, which obviously would then be a part of nature, and this thing about rights and wrongs would (unfortunately, then again thankfully) go away, because we would then be living not in accordance with a higher power nor with a specific set of rules but rather how and what we see in nature. We use mostly science to tell us what nature does, how it operates, and we have been able to come to many a fundamental and major conclusion that has aided in both the continued practice and teaching of science as well as some more closer epiphanies that hit us in the heart.

However I would say that at this stage we have created and identified not 1 but 2 logical fallacies, furthermore that this illogical logic that is ingrained in our heads can easily be broken down and turned in to a mess, much like a house of cards.

Firstly, the future, as we know it, will ALWAYS be ahead of us. What that means, by definition, is that we will never be able to experience it nor live in it, as its primary definition describes a state of mind, a piece of time, in the future. Can I be any simpler in my speech?

Let’s use an example and try to see how the future, in a way, only exists in our minds (and I know that it could be argued that everything exists in our minds but in order to form this argument we have to make some sacrifices to our own logic in order to make it better..err...wiser?)

The example (and forgive me if this sounds sarcastic and condescending, as I still firmly am convinced that life is complex in its simplicities and simple in its complexities) is this:

A) Right now we are in the present, a constantly changing state of time, but when things are happening in the present they are happening now: not before, not after, but the bridge in the middle.

B) One hour ago is in the past, that is, not happening now, something that already happened and will not happen again with the exact same characteristics that we gave it. That is to say, 4:47pm European Standard Time on January 1, 2009 will only happen for 60 seconds, only once, until the end of time.

C) One hour from now is the future, that is, something that isn’t happening now, hasn’t happened yet, but will eventually happen (if we continue to believe our concepts of time, the way in which it is created by us to keep order, as well as sell those really fun calendars of puppies or rainbows).

Now that we have our definitions let’s begin to talk about the future and try to untangle this simple and yet complex web we have created.

The present hour is one that we all know, since it is contemporary with ourselves. Our past was contemporary, but due to the fact that it is not current we can’t hold it responsible for the continued flow of time. The future hour, however, is something we construct and wait for. Seem simple enough?

Let’s first go back 1 our. That would mean that the past is now the present and the present now the future, which makes sense due to our definitions of present, past, and future. But one hour ago the future was not the present, it only becomes the present when we are working in the past. Now that we are in the past it is ok for us to say that yes, the future was now in the past since it already happened, but that would be wrong because how then could we assume that both the past and present are working at the same time? And let’s not forget about the future.

Let’s now go forward an hour, making the present the past and the future the present. But now where did the future go? Even if we assume both are happening at the same instant with respect to time, we still lose the future, it is still always in front of us. What I am trying to say is that right now the future lies ahead, but once the future is in front of me it is not the future anymore, but rather the present. Even though it is still the future with respect to the past we cannot eliminate the past’s relative stance towards its

future.

Secondly (if you are still counting), by doing all this we still cannot escape our own language and the way we use it to understand, or at least convince ourselves that we understand. What I mean is that things don’t have to be the way they are, that we use our tongues to make noises to infer and imply certain characteristics, but without the language we are using nature, time, concepts, words, nothing can exist. We have to have control, we have to be able to change it, and if something is unknown we have to make it known to be able to control it and change it. Language is ambiguous in that anything can mean anything, words in themselves are empty, and we have to fill them up with our own understanding and values. Thankfully we have a dictionary that tells us what to think when we hear a word, but that can’t always save us. Most of the time the context in which a grouping of these words follow can change or alter the meanings of words, and that’s with respect to just one language. Throw in another one and translation begins to look more like oil paintings then they do running rivers. One is beautiful, but dead, and the other is constantly moving until it stops.

What I am trying to say is that assuming meanings to words is one thing, but assuming our own assumptions is another, and I’d hope that it doesn’t have to worry about morality, but ultimately it does. I guess it’s another way that we learn.

I hope we’re all lost. I can’t remember how the talk of the future started but I hope we opened some new doors or at least gave each other some headaches. If not, and if you are still reading, then I applaud you for your efforts (and hope that you are at work and not wasting valuable TIME at home!).

I guess what I am trying to say is that I started a blog and you’re all invited to look at it. I have been trying to fiddle with it and maybe in the future I will change its layout, but right now I think it serves the purpose of being a blog.

On another note I bought a guitar a few days ago. It’s blue and still doesn’t have a name, but it’s sitting right next to me and in a few moments I’m going to make it talk. Or does it talk through me? Or do I talk through it? Can it be played without me? Can I play it without directly or indirectly interacting with it? I guess we’ll have to try to answer those questions (by posing more) in our next episode.

If you haven’t read enough, I thought I would copy and paste the dream that I had last night at the end of this email/blog. It’s kind of fun to be in between both email and blog, and this liminality (yes, it is a word) will help if you do choose to read my entire dream. I wrote 4 pages, which for me is a record (in the 10 months that I have been writing them down). A lot happens, most of it weird. I have to warn you that I have developed a way that I write them that might not be very pleasing. Firstly, something indirectly related to the dream, but not apart of my present state of consciousness, I put in parentheses ( ). However, if I see something in my dream that propels me to think a bit more about it, then I use brackets []. So if you read something in brackets you are reading something that I thought while I was writing the dream down, and not while I was actually dreaming. I hope that makes sense, as it still confuses me sometimes.

Thank you again if you read the entire email, and if you plan on reading another 4 pages I am eternally grateful. Tell me what you think. I always appreciate your thoughts.

Ciao,

Anthony

PS: here’s the dream…

1/1/2009

School was on a field trip (from Florence to a city near Venice) but the city was more Arab than anything. We were going to be there for a few days and upon arrival via plane we had to take a submarine, but the submarine sat on top of the water and never went underneath. So we take the boat from the main land to our city, which was southwest of it.

The city was dark, orange, and the arab feeling was much apparent, maybe due to the fact that they had told us earlier that we were in for a dangerous encounter, if we chose to walk the streets and try to see the sights. I am walking down a main road at night and can see outlines of buildings, an orange hint accented by the blackness of night, and it looks like an old shop, or maybe it’s just closed. I have to get back to the hotel, but am not thinking about anything, since I can’t hear a sound. I walk closer to this building but it seems like the building is walking away from me, only so slow that I don’t realize it. I think about turning right at the alleyway but stop to think about it, all the while the scene continues to progress, as life does not wait until one is ready to live. This is by our definition, so maybe it can, can it not?

We are about to leave this city, and I used to know the name but later on when I am recounting the story to Jenn it leaves me. There could have been an sv in there, something that sounded arab, but in actuality probably more Slavic. And so we get back in the submarine that doesn’t go underwater, and it looks like a train inside, but very cramped with low ceilings. It’s definitely a circle though, since the walls are curved and the size is long and wide enough but too short to walk around without having to worry about bumping in to people. The walkway is on the right side of the machine, actually there seems to be 2-3 seats to the left side (if you are standing in the back looking forward) and 1 seat to the right, with a small isle in the middle. We board and then get off, and begin to walk around the main walkway that will lead us to the central station in Venice, and instead we walk on the roof (since that was where the submarine dropped us off).

When we were arriving this time we were in the air, and could see that on top of the main station or airport terminal it was written “Venice” from bottom to top in red letters, more like red lights so it could be seen in the dark. The top of the building was normal gray, kind of old and boring looking, and the building was long and thin and then seemed to branch out to the left and right, but not in a pure cross, more like a peace sign without the circle, as the main hub continued straight on even when the two side paths began to walk away.

I am walking with someone and realize that our bags were left on the submarine, mine being my small adidas bag and hers being a dark gray garbage bag tied with an orange string. I run back to the ship, thus over the roof again, and then jump down to where we were supposed to walk down, towards the right of where I was standing, and I see the ramp that looks to be welded to the top to allow people to disembark. I run in the ship and there are still people from this year’s program on it, I find the seat that I was sitting in but then pass it, the machine is moving and it’s turning, and we are all in it! People are shouting, and I am waiting for it to stop. First it turns clockwise with respect to me facing the front of the ship from the back, a loud crash but not too bad, we all are still standing, but the second crash (again clockwise but this time I was facing the back of the ship, having already seen my blue bag and still looking for her trash bag with the orange neck.

“BOOM!” the ship turns this time about 90 degrees, and although we are still standing we have to bend over in order to compensate for the tilt. People are screaming, I see Marisol from Italian class at SJSU, but only for a second, as I see my bag in the seat, buried a little and it looks lighter than I had thought I packed it. And then I find Megan’s bag, and I grab it with my left hand as my right shoulder has the strap to my bag. I exit the ship fast and start to think that now the ship is going to tilt, or in a few minutes, like I was shown and felt the future only to be warned, or maybe just to fuck with me. As the feeling was that that hadn’t happened yet, as everyone was calm and not screaming anymore. Or maybe enough time had passed for us to get over the situation and begin to get back to our shallow realities. I am leaving the ship and going back to Florence, but something tells me it’s not time to be there yet, and that even though I think I’m going home there is another stop on the way.

We’re at the beach, me Megan Claudio and they are playing volleyball with a light green (or faded) ball. The beach is white sand and there is water on both sides, then some mountains, we are on a sliver of land but the water is only felt from the left side, as I am at the tip of it looking back at the great earth, the mountains in the background, their gray/orange/red/earthly tones, with white caps that resemble snow but could just be dust from the volcanoes.

Before this we are all leaving the arab city near Venice, because we wanted to go to Taormina which was close on the hill. Me and Jenn are there, and big boulders are beginning to fall from the top of the mountains, engulfing themselves in fire and then crashing and taking more buildings and rubbish with them. It sounds like thunder and then a bolt of fire and the stones are getting hotter and burning but not falling apart, like lighters used to create an inferno.

We look straight ahead and see Taormina, and on top the volcano of Etna, and the city can’t be seen anymore, just volcano dust as the eruption has started. Then boulders the size of houses start to fall from the sky, having an epicenter on top of the volcano, instead of lava there were more rocks, on fire, burning, crisping, popping, and all we can do is watch the end of the world. We slowly are positioning our bodies further away, but are so marveled that we have to stop and watch the complete destruction and carnage. I tell Jenn about the time me and Blake were in Taormina and this same thing happened [which was a dream, and now I am using dreams in dreams to tell about past stories, as I begin to create my own reality in my dreams, a hierarchy, where they are linked and can be used to further my understanding of what’s going on. They are more like chapters in a book rather than short stories, but I guess right now they would appear to be short stories, and it is my own conscious mind that wants them to make sense, or maybe I just like their entertainment value, so they could be short stories independent of one another unless I choose to see the connections which don’t have to be there]

We are on the bus going back to Florence, but we are taking the route and going towards San Francisco. I had seen this on the map and had hoped to take the golden gate bridge and not the bay, and when we saw the cloud of fog encasing the city I knew we were headed for the golden gate, and as soon as we crossed over the blanket we would be in the city. Finn was sitting on the left side of the bus, me on the right, and it appears to me one of those big red buses. We had been away from the city a few days due to the field trip, and at last we were going to see the city that we had missed, and it was a glorious day. To my right I look out the window and see entrances to the zoo, with many iron doors that spin only one direction to let people in and out, in this case they were going in, but the doors weren’t there, only remnants of them, as they were in ruins, a story of the past that didn’t function anymore except in our own minds as we try to discover who we are (by who we were) and what we are doing here (by what we did there).

Finn is smiling and he is looking at me, I tell him what a glorious day it was going to be, and he continues to smile. Although the bus is full and the internal lights are turned off it feels like me and him are the only ones that matter. I can’t see his guitar but I know it’s there, and we can see all the way in front of us, as if the bus was our vehicle but it wasn’t in any way a limiting factor to our arrival, we were free.

On the beach with Megan and Claudio and I thought I saw Marco, but it was only a girl with curly hair. I wished it was him. She was wearing a diaper for a hat and a matching light green, almost teal bathing suit that was more like a speedo. No top, and her tits were more like a mans. I try to focus on her, as she talks to Megan, Claudio starts to break out and play, hitting the ball up with his hands and waiting for some one else to hit it back. The first round I sat out, not wanting to play. I was not going to take off my shirt because I didn’t want to show my white chest and hairy attributes. I focus hard on Marco and realize that it is him, that he gained some weight and was wearing a diaper on his head. I run up to him to great him, to kiss him, but I never get the chance. He hits the volleyball high in the air and before I realize that I have done I am running with my shirt off in my green trunks to try to hit the ball back to someone. I do, but it’s not close, but in the vicinity of Marco or Claudio, and we continue to play this way, the ball always getting hit and then rising and falling very slow, in slow motion or with less gravity, and everytime I go and hit it I have to dive. I am always on the sand, and one time I hit the ball so hard it goes over everyone’s head and into the desert oasis.

A boy has the ball at his feet. He’s tan and skinny and looks just like Scott Lint. Because he is. And there is Splain and Tumath and Brian (Julieanns boyfriend) and even Preet I see, mostly friends from high school. I never look back at the 3 I was playing with, and start to give Scott a hug, telling him he hadn’t changed a bit, and looked in good shape with a good tan. We ask each other where the hell we had been, but neither of us is that excited, like it wasn’t a big deal, as we had just seen each other years before, but they were closer to us than farther a way, more of an annoying fact we had to accept but nonetheless they didn’t have any bearing on our relationship. I turn and see people sitting down, my old friends, smiling at me, with the green palm trees and grass and water hole, a fountain. What a marvelous place. For a minute I forgot where I came from, who my current friends were, and I wonder what they are thinking about me, if they miss me, if they can see me as I take this journey to the past. What they will ask me when I come back, how much they care, hoping they care, but knowing it’s just my imagination, my fantasy that’s more important than the reality of what might happen, where I have the most control and can think and do whatever I want. I can get lost with it, change it, manipulate it, and the minute it comes out of me and to other people I have to give up that control, that ability to change and be whatever I want, and I have to start to conform, for the fantasy to start to adhear to rules, to society, to other people that will change it the way they want to change it, without regard for me, even though it’s my mind. They will declare how it will happen, what’s right and wrong about it, and where it should go. I am no longer in control of my own thoughts, of my own mind, only humor myself that I have these liberties, trying to chase the slave inside of me, wanting to liberate him from everyone and everything, knowing it’s impossible in this form of consciousness. [maybe that’s why I dream so much?]

Me and Jenn walking, but first it’s just me at my house in the city, and I am charging a car battery on the camaro in the garage, the ’68. And my dad comes does stairs with what I think is my puff jacket. I try to rip it off him and he says to watch out for the steamer, as there was a steamer inside of the jacket he was wearing on his left side. I try to pull, telling him he’s wrong, and then I realize that I am wearing my puff coat, and that he was right. I tell him that, rip the red and black wires off of the battery of the car, that was located towards the middle and not on one of the sides. I run in my room and try to grab everything, but can’t. The room is clean, just me in there, I don’t see anyone else and the only light we got was from outside, nothing artificial, no candles. It was enough light to live, but we could have used more, I guess, for us to function completely as we would have liked, with all of our desires and motivations, we need the artificial to continue living the way we do, and if we were set back by nature it would be its fault, not ours.

I leave the house, me and Jenn are walking up the street and see a dog in my house. Jenn says, “That looks like chewy but chewy is always standing in the window, so maybe it’s not him.” I say yea, and take a look at the Portillo house and then at the island, and then at my feet: I only have white socks on and they are very clean. I don’t want them to get dirty so I walk by the island, still on the pavement, and I am on my tip toes, trying harder and harder not to touch the road, or at least with least sock possible. And so Jenn is standing next to me, walking with me, and we talk about her going back to my house and grabbing all my stuff, since I will be in Italy-but Italy, and we are in San Francisco!

We walk and I tell her that this has happened to me before, and that you have to close your eyes a little and believe in where you are, where you are going, that there existed a place between realities where you could travel through time, but it was only this place where it was safe. It couldn’t happen for real in this reality, nor in another, but only the bridge between was where people traveled through time, a difficult thing to do because you cannot be tied down by any one reality, but rather be able to let yourself float in the middle and past nicely. It was going to take a lot of hard thought for us to do it, but once we stop at the top of the hill I can feel my body getting lighter. It is starting to get dim, to get dull, this reality is leaving us, but we musn’t wait until the next one fills the gap. We have to stay empty, have to stay liminal, we have to take our shot at the perfect moment and then we can be in two places at once, but where are hearts are is where we want to be, and if that place is far and we haven’t the time nor money it is possible to go there with neither. We are holding hands and I know that when we wake up we will be both back in Florence, safe for the time being.