Time in our Universe
I was reading about time, its paradoxes, black holes and white holes while awaiting our turn at the salon. It was a busy day, and luckily, the son and I had the foresight to take our books along to pass the time.
Every time I looked up, I saw hairdressers concentrating on their craft, while making small talk and easing their customers to relax into their chairs. It is a gift, I realized, to get their customers to trust a stranger with scissors nipping at their heads. It is hair, and it does grow back. But it also does change your immediate appearance and the perception of yourself and those around you, even if only momentarily. For a species that is vain, visually conscious, it is a fine balance to get the right look.
Time as a Map of Reality?
Back in my book on White Holes by Carlo Rovelli, the paradox of time was being explained:
I can’t say I understood it all, but it was lovely to try:
“The reason we remember the past and not the future is entirely due to the fact that the universe was further from equilibrium at one point in the past than it is now.”
Whatever did that mean?
I read on about equilibrium, till I found something that I liked.
“The flow of reality is always more fluid than any of our frantic attempts to capture it might lead us to believe. Time is not a map of reality: it is a kind of memory storage device …”
I liked that. Time as a map of reality, or not?
No Trace Will Remain
I looked up trying to fix the concepts and the reality of my physical space at the same time. I noticed the many small ways in which we trust ourselves to those around us. It should all be organic, safe, slow, and yet in our quest for productivity everything has sped up. Watching barbers and hairdressers doing it all with confidence and aplomb in such a short span of time, was fascinating.
Watching the people in the salon getting their hair cut with those cutting the n-th customers’ hair, while trying to understand the concepts of equilibrium and time is a strangely meditative experience. The son and I watched and read in turns. The annoyance of the long wait mitigated by the philosophies of being.
“Sooner or later, every memory vanishes, canceled through the wear and tear of time. Sooner or later, of our proud civilizations, of everything that we have understood, of the words in books such as this one, of our controversies and of our desperate passions and loves…no trace will remain.”
“Would you come please?” It was our turn.
“Soon of our long locks of hair, no trace would remain!” I smirked to the son, and chin up, we made our way in.
At that moment where we are not in a black hole, or not reversing into white a hole, there is only the experience of time, and the trimming of hair.
Nourish-n-Cherish 