Time
Due to the strange way my brain is wired, the exercise I did yesterday on putting my life on a pie unlocked a reflection on time. Is time linear?
Does time in the distant future need to be 'discounted'?
The ecologist in me (who's a deep one, en plus),claims, on ethical grounds, that "No, we shouldn't privilege our present/near future vs the more remote future (i.e. the time of our older selves and of the next generations)...
...but as I am looking at my life and reflecting on the consequentiality of everything I get quickly convinced of the opposite: "what we do now is the origin of what we will do next and of what we will become". The short-term becomes prominent. The time plot ahead is now that of an exponential decay..
How to get out of this rub with one's identity still intact?
Imagine you are embarking on a bike-tour crossing a remote country. You have an overall map but it's sketchy and you can only get more detailed maps of the local counties directly on the spot. You need both maps. What's the sense of wondering which one is more important?
Let long term vision guide your philosophy (otherwise you are going in circles), but take short term positive actions because they are what will trigger "consequences"...
"Live as if you died tomorrow, dream as if you lived forever", they, rightly, said.
Question #2: aren't decaying exponentials scary?
'The best moment to plant a tree was 20 years ago', so... I am already late and there's nothing I can do. Well, 'The second best moment to plant it is now'... so I'd better hurry up. So a decay can be a call to inaction or a call to action. Up to you to choose.
Q#3: But doesn't it mean that your past is always more important than your present and will define you?
The exponential decay is a magical one: it refreshes at every instant, like a sort of moving average...! And every day it's different, because what you do will be different. Comparing the past with the present is like asking which one is more tasty between a proton and a bicycle. Even if the past was commensurable with the present (i.e. for people whose life is flat as pancake- oups..the majority) it would be extremely stupid to even attempt a comparison.
Why did I even ask this ridiculous third question if not to remind my dear readers of staying out of the clutches of mediocrity?
