One Hundred and Eighty Six

The speed of light is 300,000 km (186,000 miles) per second. The time it takes light to hit your eye and make consciousness in your brain is about 120 milliseconds. This poem isn't totally accurate

it takes time to take the light

from the eye to the stem

the now you know, was a second ago

 

186,000 miles ago

 

already, gone far away

what you "know" is right "here"

  will always be miles away

 

  so maybe there is no now,

there is only then

and what may be

  so what will you do now?

Author's Note

120 milliseconds of light speed is about 320 km or just under 200 miles (you actually "read" this a couple hundred miles ago...)

Reviews

[John the Baptist]

An interesting topic here. Of course, if there is an eternal now, time is non-existent, so there would be no thens.

[Ana Papaya]

By the time you read this, you'll have already read it so it's good to think two steps a head so we're not left a step behind. (I'm sure that made perfect sense when I wrote it)

[Davidgeo]

Are you insinuating that free will might not be what we think it is?

That would be awesome... I would feel less self loathing and guilt that way.

[Ana Papaya]

Who knows. If we're programmed, wired, or conditioned to react a certain way is that free will?
read moreWho knows. If we're programmed, wired, or conditioned to react a certain way is that free will?
I believe in free will to a point I guess.
Anyway, self loathing is unproductive.

[Davidgeo]

Who knows if we were all borne into an inevitable set of circumstances that really only allow more marginal differences... I doubt we truly have as much control as we think we do anyway. The more we try and fight the objective circumstance, the less we realize our subjective existence. I think most people lie to themselves for a living. That is our real "occupation" and we are all more similar than we would like to admit in that respect.

[Ana Papaya]

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills - Arthur Schopenhauer

[Davidgeo]

Too much Schopenhauer will give you a personality disorder. Look what happened to Nietzsche... hopelessly addicted to morphine and pining over some crazy russian lady named Lou Salome who had forgotten his name ten years ago.

[Davidgeo]

(she might of been German actually... that whole intellectual scene back then was weird... I'm pretty sure they were all getting high and having orgies on the regular...Sigmund Freud, Paul Ree', Nietzsche.. they were all hedonists after work I think. Filthy animals.