chapter nine

It’s interesting to understand the origin of things. Finding out where words or expressions come from, to find their beginning, learning about one’s heritage, or discovering where it all began. Everything we know has a beginning or at least it seems that way and most of us really like that. We like saying this is when you were born, or this is when we met, or this is when we started that grandiose project to better the existence of all human life. It really is nice to have a starting point. It makes us feel like we are going somewhere. Days have mornings. Birds have eggs. Rockets have launch pads. It’s also difficult for us to play with the idea that time doesn’t exist, or time moves in all directions or some other sort of time mumbo-jumbo and not go crazy.

Sometimes it is easy for us to pinpoint exactly when things happened. Ask your mother where she was when you were born and I’ll bet she knows exactly where she was and what day of the week it was. Perhaps that is a silly example, but it serves my point. Of course there are more difficult things we all seem to remember in our pasts.

Other things are difficult to know. For example, I bet you cannot remember the first word you said. Sure you can know what the first word you said was, but do you truly remember saying it? These are the things that are lost somewhere in our pasts. They are there and we are sure of it beyond doubt. And yet we only have now to judge it by. I’ll explain it this way; I know I learned to walk at an earlier period because this morning I got up and walked. These things are a mesh and we only remember them like they were a dream. Regardless of this we still like knowing approximately when things happen. That’s just the way we are.