On the Important Matter of Time Travel

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          Nothing is random, nor will anything every be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distribution of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another...

        And yet there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will.  How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will?

The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.  No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given– so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece.

Time, however, can easily be overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once.  The universe is still and complete.  Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is — and so one, in all possible combinations.   Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful.

In the end, or, rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small is intimately and sensibly tied to all the others.  All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time; justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but as something that is.

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The above passage is excerpted from the “Nothing is Random” chapter of Winter’s Tale (Harcourt Books, copywrite 1983 by Mark Helprin, pp. 401-402), without specific permission, though I’m hoping my undying respect for his work, and our mutual respect for the works of Flannery O’Connor will earn me a one-time pass, and he will not subsequently IDF my ass. 

The above mentioned work was recommended to be by my freshman year English professor, Benjamin DeMott, via a glowing review written in the  New York Times Book Review long before I ever sat in DeMott’s class.   Interestingly, I am only reading the book now, long after I ceased sitting in Professor DeMott’s class.   How’s that for time traveling?

For the record, I recommend everything Mark Helprin ever wrote and ever will write, down to his laundry list.  

Salud.

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