The new definition of time
Time is a luxury in today’s world. It seems we don’t have enough time to do everything we want or perhaps we are just using time in an inappropriate way.
We hear endless comments about how to beat time. It seems that fighting against time or attempting to manage it has become an obsession.
The past and its mystery have always been one of the main subjects in my pictures. Maybe these photos have somehow become a way for me to control time and make it last longer. I create my own time, question it and play with it.
And what about the present? Does it exist? How can we recall the past, and not the future?
These are fascinating questions to me.
I recently discovered The Order of Time, a book that explores the meaning and nature of time. It was written by Italian theoretical physicist and author Carlo Rovelli, who has quite an unusual, but very interesting way of addressing these questions.
Here are my favourite quotes from the book. These quotes may help you see and understand time in a different way:
“We live in time like fishes in water.”
“Our present does not spread to the whole universe; it has a shape of a bubble around us.”
“The present of the universe does not mean anything. The present that separates our past from our future is almost imperceptible.”
“Think of the world like it is made of events, circumstances, processes, and things that happen, they do not last and are continuously getting transformed.”
“Our experience of the world comes from within.”
“It is the compelling combination of infrequent organized configurations and countless unorganized configurations that make an event happen.”
“Marks left by the past in the present day are everywhere. Our brain is full of memories.”
“While this presence of abundant marks from the past gives the familiar sensation of a determined past, the lack of similar marks in the future gives the sensation of an open future.”
“Memory is an accumulation of marks that tell us that the world was in a specific configuration in the past, and this is the reason why it left a mark."
"The mystery of time intertwines with the mystery of our own identity."
The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli on Amazon.