BELOW THE SURFACE OF NOW

“…what is your understanding of time?” asked me Boe an Fop’h. I’ve
already answered that question, I told him. “Yes, he said, but
explain yourself again. For the Truth shines from every one of its countless sides, as
opposed to a lie which only looks true from a certain perspective

-Well, as you might remember, I believe that time is instantaneous. Time doesn’t flow, one
second coming after the next, although it feels that way. It
feels like time carries me away

…the way I imagine it, all moments of time have already happened. What we call the
future has happened, and it’s also happening. Likewise the past continues to be

…the way I imagine it, any moment is like a square on a chess board. You can not take a
square away. Any square, any moment is eternal

-Yes, said Boe, I recall you’ve said that. Now dig a little deeper
-Okay, I said. So let’s consider moment one and moment two. Each is a room without a
door or a window to enter it

-If that is so, how can you move from room one to room two?
-You can’t. That’s what I’m saying: Time doesn't flow. We do not move in time. We do not
go from room one to room two. Instead, we already are in both rooms, as well as in
countless other rooms

-If that is so, how come I remember at moment two what happened at moment one? In
other words, how does the ‘version of me’ in room two knows what happened in room one?
-Well, that’s exactly the question I’ve been asking myself for a while. I think I found the answer



-Tell me
-There is a picture of room one in room two, that’s how. In room three, there is a picture of
room two with its picture of room one. Etc.

-But how does the picture gets there?
-It doesn’t get there. It’s just there without having to get there. In other words, there
is an infinite number of rooms, or moments. Any room that has a picture of another room feels like it’s the next room, or the next moment. There can be many next moments for any given
moment, or many rooms two with a picture of room one in it. What happens in each of
those rooms two is seen in the picture found in a series of rooms three. Etc.

-Very well. But what happens in each room?
-A picture appears, a picture of another room

-That’s it?
-That’s it. It appears. It has already appeared, once and for all. Our subjective experience of
time, our life, it’s that virtual thread of pictures that exists across one room to the next. Any
moment that you call ‘now’ is a picture hanging in one of those countless rooms

-You are not talking about the way memory works
-Not the human memory, no. I’m talking about how one particle remembers what it is, where
it is, where it comes from, and what it was, from one moment to the next

-What about the room One with a big O. What does the picture shows in Room One?
-Well, at first I thought that maybe the picture in Room One just shows nothing. Then
I came up with another hypothesis

-Which is?
-There is no Room One. The rooms are not numbered. They all appeared at once, an infinite
number of rooms or moments (let’s not forget that we are talking about time). Time is
instantaneous. What is the past or the future only depends on how far you can look into the picture at any given moment. Right below the surface of now, you can see the past. What
lies much deeper we call the future

-Ouroburos
-Yes. The snake does bites its tail

-Can you see the numbers for the super lotto?
-Yes and no

-Indeed
-There is something else

-What is it?
-If we don’t move in time, it also means…

-…that we don’t move in space. Good. You seem ready to meet with Tsyopa Maga whose
speech is like…
-…like broken glass”

::: ::: :::

[Picture: Boe an Fop’h by Boe an Fop’h]

Instead of letting me take a picture of him, the famous po-warrior gave me that self-portrait. “Rosemarine cut it in two,” he told me, “but that scotch tape is really a great invention. Can you imagine what the world used to be before that existed?”

Many Esfodi have a personal stamp which they use instead of their signature, because their writing system is so complicated. In red, the four sentences read, top: Everything is a symbol; middle: The Universe cannot be cut in two; lower right: Now is an echo of elsewhere; and lower left: They call me Boe an Fop’h. “Why no ear?” I asked Boe. “The answer to that question is the same as to this question: Why did Rosemarine cut my self-portrait in two?”