Time

 Measurable time vs. Memorable time.

I am pondering this concept or notion and will fill in my thoughts as they come to me.  Mostly while showering as the hot water pounds the dull cranium and then gurgles down to the drain.

Each of us lives for a period measured in days translated into years or loops around our star called the Sun, on this rock that itself has been around for 4.5 billion years.  That is a large number but a measurable one and thence in measured time.  Not one living soul has a memory of that since we as a species - Sapiens - do not live anywhere close to that timeframe.  Best we have pulled off is like 120 years.  Lived.  Existed.  Measured.  No idea what that being who lived that long remembered of that total.  Perhaps significantly less?  Memorable time.

Our experiences as sentient beings, constitutes a way for us to acknowledge time.  We say when I was so many years old I remember having enjoyed an ice cream cone for the first time or sadness when someone passed.  This acknowledgement of passage of time is also inextricably linked to what coordinates (latitude and longitude) we occupied when said event took place. While no one in their right mind speaks in that manner to recall an experience, 'whilst whistling down an avenue at 40.7 degree N latitude and 73.5 degree W longitude a bus hit me and broke my leg and I was in excruciating pain; they would likely recollect this encounter as 'I collided with a piece of public property on 5th Ave in NYC and lost all consciousness'.

Our identity as a human then becomes inextricably linked to that place or region as who we are or what we represent. The longer we stick around in a certain locale we acquire habits, mannerisms and reactions aligned to our continued occupation or as a result of.

Having specific citizenship or passports or singing anthems are token representations of that fact but I feel are more for us as a society or collective organism to broadcast our affiliation to others than having an inherent meaning.

To that end I now consider myself American.  Having spent more time in this nation than the country of my birth (India); or country of origin aka motherland, a place many longitudes away I am branded an American Indian at least in my way of thinking.  Those that track demographics et al would want to label me the other way, meaning my birth identity first then the acquired nationality; so Indian American or rather Asian American to avoid confusion with the native race that occupied North American landscape before the Caucasians arrived and were identified as Indian Americans.

Its very confusing.  There is also a different way economists et al think of migrants from one country into another and that is to call them expatriates or expats.

So I am an expat export too. The word stems from Latin roots, the 'pat' part referring to patriarchal or native country aka fatherland.  But wait I thought India was motherland?  Its more than confusing and I am beginning to think - stupid.

What matters is to answer the question - so what?  The answer is really in the form of what experiences we bring that are unique and therefore adding to those from say someone who grew up in Ohio or Florida or Austria.  Food for one. Cuisine.  What we eat is who we are.  A schnitzel is very different from noodles than a pizza to a khichdi.

For the first half of my life I was consuming a largely vegetarian diet as an example but the ratio of carne or meat to veggies changed dramatically once I moved several longitudes on the planet.  My language (of which I can understand a few) and my habits were different, I smelled different and wore clothes that were perhaps varied in their patterns and texture than what a person in Los Angeles was donning.

All this is happening while time passes on by. But we tend to remember some of these things.  That becoming part of the identity.  Memorable time.

What matters is that.  What we remember. We can choose to remember the good and the uplifting and what makes us feel like waking up again.  Not to count the days we were awake but rather how we chose to live those few blinks in geologic time.

Speaking of geologic time if NASA gets it right the newest $10B Webb telescope is going to go out and peer back in time.  Measurable time right to the big bang.  Wonder if I will live to see that bang. Like Banya said to Jerry "its gold Jerry gold".  The mirror in this case is pure gold coated disc capable of gathering faint light and analyzed to see what happened in time way back when.