A break with the planned Lenten posts, a new one has come to light. I have awoken from a profound dream, a time-travel dream; back to May 1979, the last weeks before my undergraduate final exams at Warwick University. I wake in the ground-floor room of the house I shared as a student. Beaconsfield Cottage, corner of Moor St and Clarendon St, Earlsdon, Coventry. I wake up as me, my consciousness ageless, though bearing the experience acquired over the intervening decades.
'Morning stroll in Earlsdon, Coventry, 1979.' ChatGPT.
I realise that I have the Chance To Do It All Again. But this time, in wisdom.
My first thought, sitting on the end of my bed, was for my children. They do not exist. But will they? The second thought is how the world has changed; the digital revolution and the end of the Cold War, a free Poland in NATO and a part of a European union. I suddenly realise I have nothing to record any of this other than a ballpoint pen and notebook, or a voice-note dictated into a blank C90 cassette.
What to say, where to start?
The mind of a 68-year-old trapped within a 21-year-old body. Do I want this to be happening to me? I feel knowledge , the physical knowledge of things, events, slipping away, though not my consciousness. Those companies that created the digital world I knew... what were they called? ... I'd invest heavily in their stocks... But this materialist thought quickly slips away. No, it's not about that, it's absolutely not about money-making. It's about a life better lived, a chance to be more thoughtful, kinder, more empathic, better behaved. I should call my parents. Give my mother a big hug. I understand her now like never before.
A fresh dawn, full of every possibility. Will the world unfold along the same path as the one I stepped out of in that long dream leading up to 2026? Other than the digitalisation, the geopolitics and the pervasiveness of stuff (so many more things than in 1979!) the world is still familiar. But whatever happened to 2026? Had it gone on to unfold into 2027 and beyond, but without me?
What to do with the rest of 1979? Easy. Pass those final exams and lead a good life. Take nothing and no one for granted; don't slip into complacency; stay aware, rein in the ego; observe more; ask the right questions. Read more – more broadly, more deeply. Engage in sincere conversations, listen more, ask the Big Questions, draw the right conclusions. Stay true to your wise self, shun the foolish self. Procrastinate less. Get On With It. Settle down sooner? Don't waste time chasing ephemeral pleasures. Avoid the pinball machines in the Students' Union. But listen to more jazz. Discover Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Miles Davis at an earlier age. Read Plato's Republic. Read Alan Watts, tap into Eastern mysticism. Engage with and protect nature.
I have woken up in 1979 with a massive expansion of my awareness of What Life Is About. What a fine gift! It is mind-blowing. How to react? My first reaction is to share all this with someone, to tell them everything about the long journey from 1979 to 2026, how things turned out, the big things, the personal things, the changing flavour of reality, the milestones, the turning points, the crossroads, the discoveries... Will they listen? Take me seriously? How much can I remember? Details are slipping from my grasp...
My thoughts turn again to my children. Do they still exist in the future? Or was the future/will the future be/ unfold along a different timeline? Their consciousnesses abide, but held in different biological containers, different parents but the same in spirit?
I open my eyes and slowly they focus on the digital clock. It is (and I'm not making this up!) 5:55. Back in 2026. Time to get out of bed, feed the cats and listen to the news headlines.
If we live in a block universe where past and future coexist simultaneously, and entropy is balanced by syntropy, could this be possible? Would I want it to be possible? [see Possibilianism post, coincidentally below] Are intuitions of the future a gift or a curse?
I wake at the interface between the material and the realm of consciousness.
{{ 'Shindoku' }} pops unbidden into my mind just now. I look up what I presume to be a Japanese word. It is.. "Shindoku (しんどく): the adverbial form of the adjective shindoi (しんどい), meaning 'tiring', 'draining' or 'bothersome'. It describes a state of being exhausted or finding something burdensome."
Not my state of mind at present!
Lent 2025: day 18
Science, Spirituality and Religion (Pt II)
Lent 2024: day 18
Do we have Free Will? (Pt II)
Lent 2023, day 18
Intuition, Consciousness and the Physical Universe
Lent 2022: day 18
Zen in the Art of Meditation
Lent 2021: day 18
Possibilianism
Lent 2020: day 18
Teetering on the Edge of Chaos
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