#21

TIME
By Alex Ness
May 19th, 2024

Rather than feature an artist or discuss works and post ideas about them.  I was thinking recently about how time is not what most people think it to be. And that the rise of human society through time was far different than I was taught.

Growing up I was told the most important and ancient of people were the Egyptians. How the Hebrew slaves built a buttload of Pyramids, and the Egyptians were the creators of language and architecture. Well that is an enormous load of crap.

Sumerians had knowledge of the astronomy, language, laws and architecture long before the Egyptians. And the Sumerians in their ancient stories and writers spoke of those who had come before them, and those who had taught them. The Mayans and Incans had great interest and knowledge of astronomy. But even before them, intelligent human cultures thrived in different regions of earth. On the West coast of South America, mummies, purposely created were made long before those in Egypt. Between the cultures in South America and Africa, one might think they were the first of the cultures and people who used intellectual foundations for their development. 

While the pyramids were being built, there were Woolly Mammoths alive upon Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean. Due to vegetation found, it was apparently far warmer than even in the present and global warming. So how does that change so dramatically?

Well beyond the false perceptions of history based on the lack of knowledge about it, and perhaps misleading theories about it, we have a poor concept of archeological development, how humans moved about the globe, and how isolated from one another or aware the people of the past were. We also have. long assumed that humans were nomadic, hunter gatherers, constantly on the move until we realized that planting crops required development of stable and constant dwellings, with walls perhaps to defend against raiders and animal attacks.

This is all just speculation on my part, but it seems to me, humanity has had numerous events that destroyed the early developments, whether comet or meteor strikes, earthquakes, polar shifts, or more, non human acts often led to human migration, and new areas of the world being inhabited.

But here is a point I think most won't agree with.
Time does not exist.

Time is how the human mind creates a context, so that it might know the progress or regress of the society, and to measure how we have moved and built, fallen, and rebuilt. Time is a concept that allows our ability to measure human accomplishment, and fails.

Time also gives a context for how the world changes. I think there is a 12,000 to 15,000 cycle that passes. It involves climate, volcanic activity, earthquakes, solar system movement, and factors we have no clue about. But it would explain how there are enormously modern ideas found in ancient mounds or caves or what not. The Greeks had a device to know the movement of the celestial bodies, thought to be for navigation. There were batteries found in Baghdad that utilized electrical interaction between metals and acids.

Time does not exist as a living growing thing, or a basic concept of something that never changes, only moves forward might not exist, but it is a tool we can use to understand our existence.  Otherwise I'd change time by going back and punching Adolf Hitler's male parent (whether by the historic assumed DNA contributor or by a rapist or secret romantic affair) in the nuts. Hard enough to make him unable to contribute his DNA.