I'm confident that I'm not alone when I say that the idea of time is a very elusive thing, but to me, it just feels entirely too subjective sometimes. Actually, I guess that it feels as unreal to the physicists that deny it exists as a linear thing.
Like most people, I follow the clocks, and am quite obedient when it comes to being early, on-time or late according to them, but in terms of my memory and my own experiences (as well as my experience of people that have had or have some importance in my life), I cannot say that this obedience seems to carry any weight; either the clock, or my allegiance to it fails me.
When I have some reminder that nudges me to think about the past, it often feels like I was both there and not, or as if the event thought of might have occurred a week, a month, or even many years in the past. Sometimes, more recent events seem stronger, while other times the strength of the memory or sensation associated with it seems of greater import. It reminds me of paintings before the renaissance, when the size of objects depended on their cultural importance, rather than their portrayed closeness to the viewer.
As hazy as the past can sometimes be, so can the future, so I rarely think about it, other than worrying over short-term things like getting paperwork done at my job or planning on what clothing I might need on an upcoming vacation. If events that happened when I was younger are unreal, the future is unfathomable. It's not that I do such a good job of living in the present that there is no need for a planned future, but rather that the sense of one remains too imagined.
So it is that when I recall memories or sensations that have occured in my life, I am often happy and delighted to try to employ them to learn more about how they have contributed to the person that I am now. More tellingly, to the man that thinks about who they are, because the sense of self needed to feel wholly like me, like Adam Cooperstein, is as hard to fathom as is my own past.
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