We are accustomed to linear time. Cause and effect. One thing happens which causes the next thing. This is one-thing-after-another time. It is how we see the world, not how the world is. There is also everything-at-once time, which might be how the world really is. Past, present, future-all the same thing.
I'm not as certain about the future, but I can tell you that the past is still happening. Think of a major event from your past. Maybe something from your childhood. That event still shapes who you are. It still affects, to a degree, every decision you make. You still learn new lessons from it.
In 1993 I was in the Army briefly before a bad knee led me to leave. At the time I learned certain lessons. Five years later I realized I was still learning lessons from those experiences. To this day I'm still learning new lessons from them. Those times are still happening. The events of your childhood are still happening to you.
If you are a smoker, then somewhere along the line you decided to be one. With every cigarette after that you were still making that decision. If you've quit, it's because you changed that decision, but those decisions are still with you. You might have decided a thousand times to be a smoker before deciding otherwise. Of course quitting is hard.
And this also gives us the basis for karma, for any Law of Return. Because every decision, every action you make, will be with you for the rest of your life. You will live with it forever. If you're in doubt about a decision, think about that.
If you believe in reincarnation (in any form), then the picture gets bigger. Now you're really going to live with each action forever. But now it's also a lot easier to understand why we are the way we are as a people. Because, even if you aren't aware of it directly, you're still being affected by everything that's happened to you, ever. Back to the cave, or back to the beginning of the earth, depending on your belief. Humanity has held certain beliefs for a very long time. Now you can see that greed is just a bad habit we've always been doing. The same goes for war, or for any prejudices, or stereotyping. Look at all the irrational fears people have. Now they can make sense. Just another old habit—no longer irrational at all.
I think people have at some level been aware of this for some time now. Look at the interest in genealogy. There's another instance where past events are still affecting you. I'm still affected by my grandmother growing up during the Depression.
Our society is changing faster than it ever has. The roles people play in it have to change, and some people don't deal well with change. Looking back, it's easy to see why.
Equality means that women should be able to serve in combat. There isn't any physical reason why they can't. But men are generally protective of women. A male officer would have a harder time sending women to die than men. We understand that that needs to change, but we've been doing this for a very, very, very, very long time. Pretty much forever. Please be patient with us.
Posted by fictionman at December 20, 2003 10:49 AM