The Rise of Supercentenarians: Kairos, Not Chronos

The Rise of Supercentenarians: Kairos, Not Chronos

Altogether the interval is small between birth and death…look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? 
Marcus Aurelius (175 AD)

By definition, you live with longevity for a very long time.
Aubrey de Grey (2005 AD)

Longevity is not a zero-sum game.
Michael Kinsley (2008 AD)

On November 26, 2008, Edna Scott Parker died in Shelbyville, Indiana.

And on that day many more people had ceased to exist on the same day due to various “causes of death.” And the next day – and the next. We see the daily reminders in the obituaries, in the headlines of newspapers, and across the multitude of web sites. And once again, we are reminded of what Dante (and T.S. Eliot) had alluded to with their chilling lines, “I had not thought death had undone so many.” Death is the great reminder about our fate and as the inevitable outcome of living. But Edna Scott Parker – as one of the many – was also someone special. She was the longest living person…alive…on the planet – as of November 26, 2008. She had lived a remarkable 115 years and 220 days. And now (as of this posting on Dec. 13, 2008) the record (verified) belongs to Maria de Jesus dos Santos (born September 10, 1893).

The rise of the supercentenarians has also run parallel with the increase in interest and in publications of “living longer” and as a result, written works on aging are no longer the exclusive province of scientific journals and massive academic tomes as the sheer number of books found on the shelves of both national chain and local bookstores that address the physical, social, and psychological dimensions of life in the long lane. Whether it is about Blue Zones, or about medical tourism, or retirement “hot spots,” both scientists and lay people alike still appear to be in search of the Holy Grail and the fountain of youth – and hopefully both at the same site.

Where to begin to understand our obsession with living longer? Where did the path begin? And where is the wisdom for our aging experience and for our time regardless if life be measured in three days or three generations? (See the epigram of Marcus Aurelius at the beginning of this article).

We could begin with mythological characters, The Three Fates, who have their respective appointed duties to perform where life is woven by Clotho, measured by Lachesis and Atropos cuts the thread of life. Given our contemporary situation, it appears that Lachesis is in need of having her job description upgraded. Or we could begin with one of the plays of Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus.Or move forward the writings of Marcus Aurelius in his “Meditations” where one will find an interesting array of insights about the processes of aging embedded in a philosophical stance of Stoicism.  In Meditations is the sense of proportion to life regardless of years alive or time spent and it offers solace to those who question the significance of less or more time in life.

We could also find historical nuggets in Tim Parkin’s book, Old Age in the Roman World: A Cultural and Social History or Moog and Schäfer’s article, “Joannes Stobaios, ‘On Old Age’: An Important Source for the History of Gerontology” which also examines Cicero’s well-known text “On Old Age” (Cato maior de senectute) as well.

Leap frogging ahead in time, there was the curious 1921 publication by Sanford Bennett Dodd, Old Age: Its Cause and Prevention which appears to be a provocative precursor to the Jack LaLanne school for living well into the later years. Dodd, who at the age of fifty, claimed to have physically completely broken down but then “reversed” his aging process through a regimen of exercise and diet, which matched the fabled miracle of Faust by changing an old body into a new one. It relates to another story of reversing aging by Mircea Eliade, Youth Without Youth, ^recently made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola (see my other blog posting on this topic).

But back to senescence in the other direction. There was G. Stanley Hall’s (1922) Senescence: The Last Half of Life and another book, titled Old Age: The Major Involution: The Physiology and Pathology of the Aging Process (1930).

Or we could consult Carl Jung’s (1933) wonderful chapter, “The Stages of Life” in Modern Man In Search of Soul. Moving forward along the path, we could also seek guidance in Ageing, the Biology of Senescence by Alex Comfort (1964) or the deeper reflections of Simon de Beauvoir, (1972) in her book, The Coming of Age Old Age.

We could then move onward to the book, Aging and Mental Health: Positive Psychosocial Approaches (1973) by Robert N. Butler and Myrna I. Lewis, and marvel at cover of that book where the great Russian novelist Leo Tolsoi is pictured telling stories to his grandchildren. We could explore the textured dimensions of aging captured in The Psychology of Adult Development and Aging (1973) edited by Carl Eisdorfer and M. Powell Lawton and then continue on to rediscover the vade mecum of aging (and Pulitzer Prize winning book) by Robert Butler, Why Survive? Being Old in America (1975).

 In the following year, A Good Age by Alex Comfort (1976).  Then into the 1980s with the edited book by Alan Pifer and Lydia Bronte (1986), Our Aging Society: Paradox and Promise that was a gold mine of collected writings capturing both the benefits and challenges of an increasing life expectancy. Then into the 1990s with a flurry of distinct publications such as Thomas R. Cole’s 1992, The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging in America. Another lighthouse beacon along the way was The New Aging: Politics and Change in America (1992) by Fernando Torres-Gil. Traveling along the chronological grey line again to Betty Friedan’s (1993) The Fountain of Age who offered a revolutionary interpretation of based on her personal aging experiences and with other’s insights from gerontological research to engage in some effective myth busting. And then along the journey again with Leonard Hayflick’s (1994) How and Why We Age who wisely suggested that many ethical dilemmas would have to be addressed before engaging in lofty scientific goals and tampering with the clocks that govern aging. The hourglass as half empty was further advanced with Jean Amery’s (1994) unbearable-heaviness-of-being publication, On Aging: Revolt and Resignation, who summarized it all thusly: “aging is an incurable sickness.”

And the pendulum would swing back to the unending colorful birthday balloons of Gail Sheehy’s (1995) New Passages: Mapping Your Life Across Time. Then there was the force field of integration economics combined with the findings of cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology of Richard Posner’s, Aging and Old Age. The decade closed with a book by Theodore Roszak (1998)“America the Wise: the Longevity Revolution and the True Wealth of Nations” and then later expanded and revised to be published again in 2001 under the title of Longevity Revolution: As Boomers Become Elders.

But wait five minutes and the weather changes to overcast skies with Peter G. Peterson’s (1999) Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America and the World.  But it is springtime again with the optimistic Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old (1999) by Ken Dychtwald.  And then there is the buzz-kill-but-needed-pragmatics of The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (2001) by S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce Carnes. Then to the various levels of exploration on longevity into the 21^st century such as landmark research of George Vaillant and captured in his book, Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life and Longevity: The Biology and Demography of Life Span by J. R. Carey. The cognitive and psychological perspectives of Positive Aging (2005) by Robert D. Hill and then Aging: The Paradox of Life by Robin Holliday (2007). Then outward to the macro-level with Challenges of an Aging Society: Ethical Dilemmas, Political Issues edited by Rachel A. Pruchno and Michael A. Smyer (2007).

As we draw near to much needed rest area on our journey, we can learn from a medical doctors sage advice with Sherwin B. Nuland’s (2007) The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-being or learn about the never-ending story, Ending Aging:  The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime by Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rae (2007) (and see my blog posting on 2008 Aging Book of the Year Awards). We could review the most up-to-date theoretical perspectives on human longevity with The Biology of Human Longevity: Inflammation, Nutrition, and Aging in the Evolution of the Life Spans by Caleb Finch (2007) or take in the complete vista at the overlook, a four-volume set, titled appropriately enough, Ageing, compiled by Susan A. McDaniel. And we can top it all of with Robert Butler’s (2008), The Longevity Revolution (who offers an interesting term of “shortgevity”).

But I wonder if all the attention to longevity has eclipsed the focus on how to live better with the years that we have – or hope for. While the thread of life may keep getting longer for most of us, what do all of the threads mean? Do they all come together to create something significant – or meaningful? I think Michael Kinsley has come close to examining my concern via a recent issue of The New Yorker. There he considered that the extending of life expectancy (“Mine is Longer than Yours”) and the resulting (and looming?) promise of increased longevity is fast becoming the last big sweepstakes (not counting the escaping of death itself) for the largest generation in history. Kinsley quipped that life offers several rounds to go through and there are many who are successful in midlife but were losers in the high school years. But the last chapter of life (the third round) may be bonanza or disaster as well, but yet while some people may win both rounds, or even all three, all of us will cross that “invisible line at some point.”

And if we all get to look forward to a longer life, there are some who worry that we are not seeing the bad news in the “careful what you wish for” side of the coin.  For example, Charles Mann wrote a provocative piece in the The Atlantic, “The Coming Death Shortage”, whose view is that increased longevity is akin to a cruel joke with blowback and negative consequences for subsequent generations, thus the subtitle, “Why the longevity boom will make us sorry to be alive.” The message in Mann’s article helps to keep us honest in our candy-coated dreams in the era of longevity. Between the pendulum swinging from doom and gloom to prosperity and fulfillment with aging baby boomers, I do hope there is also the middle path.

It’s not so much that we should modify the Hippocratic aphorism of “Ars longa, vita brevis” to “Ars longa, vita longa” rather; we should focus less on calibrating the chronos, and try more to cultivate the kairos.

Where is the discussion of the quality of life in the increasing number of years of life?

To be continued…for a long time.

Iconoclastically yours, 

Scott D. Wright

The Curious Case of the Arrow of Time: The Vagaries of Preternatural Aging (Section 3)

Section 3

Readers are welcome to use this posting series (No. 1) for educational purposes and I welcome the proper citation/reference back to this source:

Wright, S. (2008). The Curious Case of the Arrow of Time: The Vagaries of Preternatural Aging, Occasional Paper Series, (No. 1), December. University of Utah, Gerontology Interdisciplinary Program, Salt Lake City, UT. 84112 

Section 3: Continued from Sections 1 and 2 (see previous postings in this series)

The Curious Case of the Arrow of Time: The Vagaries of Preternatural Aging (Section 3)

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Contra-aging (aging-in-reverse) and Time’s Arrow

As a gerontologist, I have always been intrigued by the observation of Hegel in the preface of his book, Philosophy of Right (Wood, 1991) where he stated,

When philosophy paints its grey in grey, a shape of life has grown old, and it cannot be rejuvenated, but only recognized, by the grey in grey of philosophy; the owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the onset of dusk (p. 23).

This statement reflects Hegel’s supposition that a culture’s philosophical understanding reaches its peak only when the culture enters its decline. In other words, philosophy is by design “backwards looking” because it is not supposed to be prescriptive (forward-thinking), rather, it understands best while looking into the rearview mirror of time and place.  In relation to things gerontological, I have wanted to build a bridge from Hegel’s insight to the interdisciplinary study of aging so that the flight of the “wise” owl of Minerva might have a symbolic significance (and application) for the later stages of human development (into the dusk of life) as well. There is something about the quote that strikes me as less a Hegelian aphorism and instead more about the potential gain or outcome or benefit for living long and reaping the rewards of maturity and the experience of the passage of time.

In other words, the owl of Minerva begins its flight with the onset of the second half of life – and only with time passed through many years of experience. While this proposition has some correlation with the theoretical perspectives of both Jung and Erikson and perhaps to the prospect of “reminiscence work” as described and fleshed out by Gibson (2004), and with Kotre’s (1996) substantive work on the links between generativity and transmitting values through the flow of culture (see also McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1998), and finally with Said’s (2006) “late style,” the key here is that aside from the prospect of later life evolving into living in the land of “geritopia” (see Blechman, 2008), there is the alternative path of social/community/civic engagement to be found in the intimate connections and embeddedness with all generations (Freedman, 2000; 2007).

In the grey of life, the symbolism of both Minerva (Athena) and the Owl connotes a supposed “wisdom” to be had based on the experience flow of time forward, but the wisdom to be had is conditional upon the ability to cultivate cultural treasures via cognitive and emotional discovery through time experienced backward. The literature has addressed the nuances of wisdom as something that is both culturally and contextually bound (Le, 2008), and is not an automatic outcome of old age per se, but takes active cultivation and preparation (Gluck & Baltes, 2006), and can be expressed through competence, pragmatics, integration, interconnections, and the plentitude of critical life events (Webster, 2007). Wisdom, as the possible crown jewel in a life lived long, is understood as a combinational process of many factors over the course of one’s life,but at the end of the day, the likelihood of wisdom increases with age (Gluck & Baltes, 2006) and reflects an Emersonian self-reliance along with an Eriksonian integrity. And even though Bloom (2004) offered that wisdom is to be found in both our sacred and secular contexts, he observed it as something very personal,

The mind always returns to its needs for beauty, truth, and insight. Mortality hovers, and all of us learn the triumph of time. We have an interval, and then our place knows us no more (p. 1).

And so to answer Bloom’s (2004) question: Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? - I would offer that wisdom is very much a latent resource in the aged individual and is a gift to be harvested and shared because of time’s arrow. Perhaps this relates closely to Kierkegaard’s aphorism: While life has to be lived forwards, it can only be understood by looking backwards.  And again with Schopenhauer’s (2000) insight into the significance of later life as having the potential and ability to weave life experiences, but to also to see the connections that make up the fabric of social interaction and the transmission of culture,

Life can be compared to a piece of embroidered material of which everyone, in the first half of his time can see the top side, but in the second half the reverse side. The latter is not so beautiful, but is more instructive because it enables one to see how the threads are connected together (p. 482).

And these connections are eloquently captured in the insights of Kotre (1996),

Whether one looks at the stories we tell about ourselves or whatever one looks at the marks we leave when we die, culture inevitably appears. In the chill of death, dew forms on the web of significance on which collectively live our lives and for a time reveals its outline (p. 269).

But I am also in agreement with Said (2006) who offered that wisdom in later life does not necessarily always lead to reconciliation, resolution, and serenity; rather, there may be a desired dialectical tension and an “unproductive productiveness going against…”. In other words, wisdom can raise more questions than answers; there is heroism, but there is also a degree of intransigence. There may not be transcendence involved nor may there be any great epiphany or grand unity discovered. In fact, for Said, “late style” may actually reflect and encourage anachronistic creative behavior so that “late style is in, but oddly apart from the present.” (p. 24). Said’s “late style” helps us to understand the role of being a part of the Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) and the sharing in cultural progression, yet also trying to maintain a creative “self-making” in the flow of time. It is an expression of stepping outside of time all the while acknowledging the fate of one’s being – as time will (and does) end.

And it is here I am making the invocation to the grand quintessence a long-lived life and the establishment of the fruits and the crystallization of time’s arrow in human developmentthat inspire a theoretical and assumed higher order of contemplation, insight and eudaimonia for the benefit of the individual, for the peer cohort, and for generations to follow (Freedman, 2000; 2007; Kotre, 1996; Roszak, 1998; 2001).

A few examples of how the cinema has addressed the mythic qualities of a long life and the older adult as the fountain of wisdom (and tall tales) can be found in Jack Crabb in the film Little Big Man (1970) based on the book by Thomas Berger (1964) and it is believed that Dustin Hoffman holds the record for portraying the greatest age span of a single character, playing Jack Crabb from the age of 17 to 121. And there was Obi-wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977) with Merlin mentoring Arthur in Excalibur (1981) and Gandalf (the Grey) in the Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) trilogy.

But if wisdom is proposed to be honorific laurel wreath of time’s arrow in the aging process, it is also no surprise that the allure of reversing time’s arrow (contretemps: contra + temps = against time) such that one could trade-in all of the wisdom and laurel wreaths of the world for a chance to go back in time. It is a measurable and sustainable theme in both the literature and cinema. Although related, I am not referring to the reversal of time’s arrow in terms of short-term memory loss as portrayed by Leonard Shelby in the movie Memento (2000) where Christopher Nolan (the director) has offered a backwards-moving plot (through time?) with the color scenes told in reverse chronological order while the black and white scenes are done in chronological order. In essence, the viewer is caught up in a “remembering the future” experience (see Goh, 2008; Heise, 2000; Parker, 2004). ⁵ A similar theme is found in story told backwards through time with Ray in Reverse written by Daniel Wallace (2000) ⁶ where the main character, Ray Williams, is in heaven trying to sort out the significant events in his life going back to about ten years old (or young).

But these are not necessarily artistic examples of reversing time’s arrow in the context of the aging process.  As you recall, I began this essay with a brief look at two movies that have been recently released (but both based on books published many years ago) that portray a reversal in time’s arrow and thus a movement backwards through time from senescence and toward youth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Youth Without Youth).  And I presented them as benchmarks for our targeted discussion. And so, we arrive closer to the mark with the example of Martin Amis’s (1991) book,Time’s Arrow, with its short-on-pages but long on fictive plot considering the thermodynamics of history where the protagonist and the narrator share the same body and experience time passing in reverse. The beginning of the book is the death of the main character (the doctor Tod T. Friendly, and then into others: John Young, Hamilton de Souza and Odilo Unverdorben) but becomes younger and younger during the course of the novel and the ending of the story is when he enters his mother’s womb. But it is the story in between the start and the end, which has the doctor revisiting the Auschwitz death camp, and with twisted logic, and the backward narration, history is indeed vastly different and the narrator “dies” when the protagonist is born (see Glaz, 2006; Menke, 1998).

And closer still to our target of portraying a comprehensive (but not quite) reversal in aging is found in the book The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer (2004). Greer has created in Max a character who is born quite old and ages backward physically (thus getting younger each year), but mentally and emotionally he progresses forward as do other children. In this case, Max Tivoli was born in San Francisco in 1871 looking like a 70 year old man, but on the inside still a child. John Updike (2004) provided an interesting book review on Greer’s work and noted that, “Max differs from Benjamin Button in that Button begins with a fully stocked old brain and ends with newborn’s tabula rasa; whereas Max learns as he goes, as do those of us not condemned to age in reverse.” The meaning (and the confusion) of it all is that Max’s condition is both a blessing and a curse (“Inside this wretched body, I grow old. But outside – in every part of me but my mind and soul – I grow young,” p. 5), especially as he tries to navigate the turbulence of love (with Alice) and all the while, as Updike (2004) phrased it, “growing against the grain of time.”

Greer further builds an interesting bridge (see page 5) via a connection to the Shakespearean play Hamlet by having Max see his condition as similar to the “ancient curse” as highlighted in the odd and cryptic dialogue between Hamlet and Polonius in Act II, Scene II where Hamlet is reading from a book (“words, words, words”) and Polonius wants to know more about the book that ostensibly has so much of Hamlet’s attention. The book that Hamlet had his nose in was claimed to be a satire of old age and Hamlet (after some ageist commentary) then says to Polonius,

“…for you yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.” 

Despite the temporal paradox within Hamlet’s lines, the crab is an interesting allegorical device (to which Polonius thought at least representing method in the madness of even thinking about it) to dramatically capture the motion and symbolism of going backwards and is portrayed in Greer’s novel and in Shakespeare’s play (at least) as a bittersweet experience (at least) and as a curse (at most). Going backwards and against the grain is bound to create an “out of joint” existence for the individual within time’s arrow, which brings along all else with it: family, friends, culture, and social structures, except the protagonist. The crab motif in effect conveys a going against nature and an oddity that is exceptional in life, and yet, not at all pleasing or desired. For example, I think of the derogatory comment to describe the person in the later years of life (a crabby old man/woman) who is unwilling, reluctant, irritable, dour, and basically an unpleasant person. Too much concern with going back and embracing backwardness reminds me of Nietzsche’s aphorism, “By searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The historian looks backward; eventually he also believes backward.”

I also interpret being-as-a-crab as someone who cannot break out of their shell and move forward; instead, the person is perceived to be “holed up” and Rip van Winkle like, out of date and out of time. The crab image and its attendant allegorical layers have also eerily served as prominent threads to several temporal issues in T.S. Eliot’s poem The Love Song J. Alfred Prufrock (see also North, 2001 and comment about connection Marvell’s poetry). For example, Eliot’s verse about Prufrock (who also ironically said that he was “not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be”) is at once sad and frail in its connotations, “I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas,” in large part as it seems to me, because there is the inability of Prufrock to connect with others, and thus is disconnected with intimacy. He is seemingly crustacean-like in his inability to cultivate relationships and instead is only aware of the minutiae in his life as his life as it is “measured out in coffee spoons.” Eliot also makes reference to things crab-like (along with our elemental words of “dust” and “sand”) “An old crab with barnacles on its back,” from the poem “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” (see Eliot, 1991) which only reinforces Eliot’s preoccupation with the themes of time, aging and the spectacle of existential angst and catharsis (“I grow old…I grow old…”) into the landscape of the second half of life. The cross-weaving of these themes are like flares in the sky to indicate a lesson, a warning, a message about the aging process that carries with it both loss and fragility, but there is also the opportunity to exact what makes us (more) human as we age (forward) and to re-examine our lives and redefine superannuation. The point here is that there has been much written about the allure of shifting time’s arrow by contemplating the journey of life in reverse and that the voyage back (theoretically) in time is much more “rewarding” than movement toward the inevitability of decline and death.

Ah yes, to be young again – to be vigorous and splendid in physical perfection (think of the The Eagles song “Twenty-One” and “strong as I can be and there is no reason why – I should ever want to die”). Instead of wondering, like The Beatles (1967) did, if someone will still need me when I’m sixty-four, we could, instead, go the route of Nirvana (1991) and don’t care or mind if we’re old. Or better yet, is there a way to have both the wisdom and peak of physicality so that George Bernard Shaw’s assertion, “Youth is wasted on the young,” could be flipped on its head by expressing it this way, “Wisdom is wasted on the old.” Could we reap the rewards of time’s arrow and yet have it reversed so that we can have our cake and eat it too? This is not just averting “this bank and shoal of time” by holding back the years as sung by Simply Red (1985; see also Templeton, 2007) or like jumping in swimming pools with cocoons (in Florida – of course!) from extraterrestrials (Antereans) in order to escape “the mortal coil” (see Haycock, 2008) of illness, aging, and mortality (see movies, Cocoon, 1985 and Cocoon: The Return, 1988). Even though Epstein (2007) describes the aging process as where Narcissus has been asked to leave the pool (“time passes, the day darkens, the grave yawns”), in contrast, the people of the high country town of Springhill, Colorado, and based on the novel by Clifford Irving (1996), The Spring, were really doing quite well despite their “age” and have decided to stay in the pool a little longer (maybe something in the water?).

No, instead of fantastical accounts and fairy tales we are seriously exploring the prospect of “the possibility of an island” in time where there is both immortality and the perpetuity of the same, which is beyond Decrepitude and Senioritude, and death itself (see Houellebecq, 2005). We have now reached the point of breaking time’s arrow in half and the crucible for extended and eternal life is no longer science fiction (see Slusser, Westfahl & Rabkin, 1996). The pursuit of prolongevity is now on our doorstep (Cole & Thompson, 2001/2002; Post & Binstock, 2004). And the target of the arrow is no longer found within mythology, fictional stories, and the magic of special effects in film, rather it is purported to be found at the macro and systemic level of the body/mind/spirit connection (see Chopra, 2002), and perhaps deeper into the microbiological and the phylogenetic levels. Whether you belong to the evolutionary or mechanistic camp, (see Hughes & Reynolds, 2005) (or see both as complementary), or you buy into SENS (De Grey, 2007; see also Templeton, 2007) or SENSE (Rose, Rauser, Benford, Matos, & Mueller, 2007; Rose, 2008) as representing the most current scientific revolution in gerontology, or whether you are the futurist, the optimist, or the realist in regards to aging and mortality (Carnes & Olshansky, 2007) the message is clear: time’s arrow in aging may have been seen as thermodynamic, but in the 21^st century we may come to see time’s arrow for the human species become more the domain of biological engineering. Furthermore, it makes me wonder if the primary role of gerontologists in the year 2060 will be to primarily serve as historians of time – in the way that it used to be – back in the old days.

Gerontology is dead. Long-live gerontology.

Speaking of time and aging and going way back, Sophocles and Ovid shall have the closing commentary on our topic,

Dearest son of Aegeus, none but the gods
Escape old age and death: all else 
time in its relentless flood sweeps away.      
                       Sophocles – Oedipus at Colonus

Time glides away and we grow older through the silent years;
the days flee away and are restrained by no rein.     
                       Ovid

We shall see – and time will tell.

Notes from all sections of posting (1,2,3)

1. Let us not forget Alan Sokal’s now infamous 1996 article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” that was published in the cultural studies journal Social Text, and then soon after, revealed to be a hoax. It was deliberate satire and parody. Sokal was apparently exposing the cavalier way in which constructs of science could be twisted and co-opted to fit postmodern rhetorical and political agendas (see Sokal, 2008 for a comprehensive examination of the issue) and as a result there was (and is) the proliferation of the Frankensteinian beast known as “pseudoscience.”
2. In the edited book by Michael North (2001), The Waste Land: T.S. Eliot, W.W. Norton & Co.; New York, there is a insightful footnote about the connection of verse in Eliot’s “III. The Fire Sermon” and Andrew Marvell’s poem, “To His Coy Mistress” first published in 1861, where the following lines by Marvell were adapted by Eliot into his poetry, “But at my back I always hear/Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”
3. Speaking of eternal recurrence, I reviewed one blogging site that was titled, “Time Loop” and naturally the blog entry presented how the blogger felt like they were going in circles and where “every day is exactly the same” (see Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor from the album “With Teeth”) and the blogger had their entry in a repeating pattern – over and over again – as the web pages were scrolled downward. Absurdly funny and/or ironically apropos.
4. As creative and insightful examples of capturing the moments of time, I recommend reviewing Thomas Pynchon’s (1997) book, Mason & Dixon,and what I believe to be one of the finest openings to a book and the setting of the stage and scene not only “back in time” but the flowing of time by using a descriptive sequence of words that unfold much like a visual walk using a camera to capture the context and temporal dimensions of the novel. There is also Katagiri’s book (2007), Each Moment is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time, where it was stated that Dogen Zenji said that most people are not able to acquire the way-seeking mind of spiritual awareness without deeply understanding that a day consists of 6,400, 099,180 moments. A moment is called ksana in Sanskrit. “The numbers associated with moments in a day are not so important, but we should have a sense of how quickly time goes” (pp. 3-4).
5. Another movie that grapples with time’s arrow and memory is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004; for a provocative analysis of similar films such as Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible and Martin Amis’s book,Time’s Arrow, see Goh, R. (2008). Myths of reversal: Backwards narratives, normative schizophrenia and the culture of causal agnosticism. Social Semiotics, 18, 61-77.
6. Wallace also wrote the book (1998): Big Fish: A novel of mythic proportions which was used as the basis of the movie by Tim Burton, Big Fish released in 2003 which has its own interesting story of time and reflections on the past.

 

 For a complete list of references: please contact Scott Wright or please see the full
PDF version of this paper