What I Haven't Told My Family About
The Meaning of Time
Personal Reflections on Mortality
Donald Harvey Marks, physician scientist
A recent memorial service honoring an acquaintance provided another opportunity for me to reflect upon what are the most important aspects of my life. What do I do with the rest of my life, however much time and life I may even have left? What is most important to me to do now and what is most important for my family? What does my life really stand for now, at this moment and what does the life I have led to this point really say about me as a person?
( This complete discussion is also available as a podcast https://bit.ly/3aeZRGS)
We no longer have cable TV at home, having cut the cord, relying instead on the internet TV. One of the news apps always starts by asking, "How much time do you have?" Maybe I am putting too much into that question, but each time I read those words I realize that none of us including me really know the answer, and few even want to consider it. But that question applies to each of us, and to our families, our extended family, and even to the very memories of our lives.
When asked what surprised him the most about humanity, the Dali Lama replied, “Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Being in the health care field, I internalize those reflections of Dali Lama, and each time I read that response I wonder if he was speaking directly to me. His words make me question whether I do live in the present, whether I have really lived, and what exactly do I live for. My extended family helps me in understanding the context of the Dali Lama’s response, and gives me a structure to frame its meaning.
It is in this context that I am reminded of the recent and most excellent poem “The End,” by Mark Strand.
“Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.
When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down
No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.
When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky
Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus
And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,
Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing
When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end."
For such a non-doctrinaire group of mostly non-believers and skeptics, the Unitarian Universalists (www.UUA.org) possess an organized belief system that they as a group universally accept and is in most ways I think universally acceptable. https://vimeo.com/344862790 Their 7 basic principles clearly separate UU from other religions, and those are 7 inclusive life principles that we should all be able to agree on.
- The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
- Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
- Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth;
- A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
- The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within congregations and in society at large;
- The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
- Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Hopefully if each of us were to prepare a list of our core beliefs, we would incorporate some or most of these same guiding principles to our own lives.
In her deeply reflective poem “Everywhen,” Carol Snyder Halberstack wrote:
“I have no more time to linger on my dreams of all that might have been,
no more time to tell that time does not exist
or turns and twists upon itself as our smallest whirling particles of cells
held like galaxies by gravity
expand, explode, until the stars collapse.
Gravity is what I know as time runs out
and sand runs down its unturned hourglass.
No time to tidy up or sort, no time to do what’s been postponed as if,
once strong,
or turns and twists upon itself as our smallest whirling particles of cells
held like galaxies by gravity
expand, explode, until the stars collapse.
Gravity is what I know as time runs out
and sand runs down its unturned hourglass.
No time to tidy up or sort, no time to do what’s been postponed as if,
once strong,
time would never stop.
Time is a mayfly’s day for everyone, eternity an everywhere.”
Time is a mayfly’s day for everyone, eternity an everywhere.”
In the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day,” one of my favorites, an arrogant Pittsburgh TV weatherman is assigned to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.
In one of my favorite Star Trek Voyager episodes, “Year of Hell,” the Krenim scientist Annorax develops a gigantic ship-based temporal (time based) weapon to cause "temporal incursions" that he plans to use to erase events from history and thereby strengthen the Krenim Imperium.
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However, the resulting changes he creates inadvertently cause a plague that kills millions of Krenim, including his wife. This is unacceptable Collateral damage and for the next 200 years, Annorax seeks unsuccessfully to reverse the plague he inadvertently caused, the full restoration of his Krennin species and thereby to bring his wife back to life. His crew realizes the folly in his obsessive approach, but he lacks the necessary insight and cannot. Annorax destroys the Star Fleet ship Voyager, but doing so causes the Krenim time ship's temporal core to destabilize and explode. This erases the time ship from history in another massive temporal incursion thereby resetting the timeline for Annoorax, for Voyager, and for everyone everywhere. In the new timeline, Voyager again ventures into Krenim space but this time the captain of the Krenim warship is moderate. He advises Voyager that “this area of space is under dispute” and suggests they avoid it. Annorax in this timeline is seen working diligently in his study. His wife enters and asks him to enjoy the day with her. He hesitates for a moment, and then decides that he can “make the time” for her. Oh what a moment of perhaps unintended insight. But we know better. They leave while his work remains behind on his desk, and on it we can see the calculations for his original alteration of the timeline, which because of his wise choices and priorities he ignores. Lots of twists and turns, but several good insights and life lessons that reached down to my core.
When a loved one asks for your time, don’t hesitate like Annorax, for opportunities like that are definitely finite. Opportunities to reach back and change time and outcomes just don’t exist. We can live in what seems to us like our own individual Groundhog Day, each day seemingly the same as the next, but in real life that never really occurs. Once said, words can not be unspoken, actions can not be undone, results cannot truly be unforgotten, therefore choose what you say and do carefully. Beware of unintended consequences and be not accepting of collateral damage, because it could be to you or your loved ones.
Ultimately, and too soon, each of us will be merely memories waiting to be recapped by speakers delivering a eulogy at our memorial ceremony and then too soon forgotten. That is the way life works for all of us, the way our universe is set up and runs, and it can’t be changed, and it’s unreasonable and delusional to think it can or should be changed. But perhaps we can somehow affect the outcomes. I think we can perpetuate our life’s meaning, if that is of meaning to us, continue our memory’s survival by making our extended families stronger, and ensuring their survival. Each of us can therefore resolve to invest our time, our efforts and our resources into making the actions and the memories of our lives as meaningful as possible for those we care most about. Support those principles that have been the bedrock of your own unique life, and work to keep your extended family healthy.
Related writings of DH Marks
Einstein, Relativity and Relative Ethics . On this blog
Jonas Salk, Polio Vaccine and Vaccinating Against Hate. On this blog
Transit States, the Collected Poetry of DH Marks, available on Amazon and Kindle
A most poignant episode of Voyager, I recall.
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