Mindful College Writing: Time is the True Unit of Measurement

“Literature helps us to remember what we’ve experienced”, is a quote said by Joshua Prager that sum up his March 2015 TED talk. Mr. Prager often writes about historical secrets. He wrote the classic children’s book of “Goodnight Moon.” He went to Colombia University where he studied music theory. Mr. Prager’s unique human experience should be made as an example that the world experiences make us brighter if we can see life as our school where we are destined to grow.

 Death and time are two concepts that we are too familiar with. It is enviable that we will die. Our experience on Earth is objectively short in comparison to the greatest known thing, the universe and the time that is outstretched unfathomable to us. To be wise with our aging body is to become enlightened by our experiences. Joshua is turning 44 years old and is seeking meaning to the aging experience. He is reflective on the many ages, conditions attached to those ages, and the experiences that are in response to changes of time. Time would not exist if the threshold of one condition entering into another condition was not apparent to us like the universe does not age forward or backward. It is in a state of infinity but since we cannot view ourselves in a state of infinity we bring down the complexity of the universe to make it comprehendible to the human mind. We come to the conclusion that the universe is expanding, becoming wiser and all things that are becoming wiser are associated with aging according the Alan Watts perceptive. We create science, math, writing so that we can understand the slightest bite of what is actually going on in the cosmos.

In order to become wiser is to capture our experiences like a photo of a butterfly, so that we can see details that we could not see without sitting still and viewing the photo with focus. We discover that the blues, purples, yellows, and the patterns in which they are organized on the butterfly’s wings become surreal like switching a dime bulb to a new brighter one, the room begins to open up. In writing we form new thoughts that did not exist prior to contemplating what we wish to write about. The new thoughts are an effect of our stillness as we reflect and try to find the best way to describe our minds eye so that the person reading it can see exactly what we see, more than that, the reader through aging time can see and feel beyond what we saw and felt.

Matter can be seen when infinitely is broken into fragments. In the movie “Lucy” the main character reveals the true until of measurement, time; “Film a car speeding down a road. Speed up the image infinitely and the car disappears. What proof do we have of its existence? Time gives legitimacy to its existence…[time] gives proof to the existence of matter” –Lucy. The human experience asks of humanity to become wiser. Nothing would make sense if one was not seeking to become wiser. Each passing year the mind has an opportunity to become wiser. Joshua Prager made it clear to me that age is a passing number, but how much the people allow themselves to live, experience, grow, change, evolve, become wiser is what time offers. 

Contemplating on a typical America day, waking up, going to work, coming home, feeding the kids, doing chores, to wake up and do it all over again has awakened me that Americans do not value their time. They speed through time hoping for a better time to come. Nothing has meaning if a person lives that way. Daily accomplishments should stamp that one has become wiser, but there are no daily time stamps, therefore, there is no significance to one’s day, but random moments a person hopes will lead to a greater moment.

“Life passes into pages if it passes into anything” (James Salter, Burning The Days), this quote shows Mr. Prager’s perspective on life and writing. A thought comes to mind while listening to Mr. Prager thoughts about this quote. Avatar by James Camron. The tree of souls, which to the indigenous people is one with everything. When a being connects with the tree they can download wisdom from the entire world and all that have lived and will live and input their own wisdom. Can this be used as a metaphor for what writing is, but an infinitely more complex idea of it? We have access to wisdom through memories, even if those memories are fiction or non-fiction through novels. James Camron takes the idea of wisdom human kind associates with reading into a spiritual divinity. Joshua Prager’s lecture transforms writing into more than just shared ideas but writing is a glimpse into the eternity that lives beyond the mundane thought. Writing has a spiritual core because It awakes readers to how interconnected lives of humans, plants, and other animals are. Each thing on Earth ages and affects the entire world.