(This post mentions Lost, but there are no spoilers. Promise).
I am currently in mourning. For six years I watched every single Lost episode, (even when it got a bit shit around Season Three). I was hooked from the pilot. I loved the mad geek fan sites, and the writers who never spoon-fed cliched plot lines. Also: Sawyer. I especially found the (admittedly sometimes illogically executed) exploration of time and space, completely fascinating. So I was very excited to find Philip Zimbardo’s talk at TED on the secret power of time.
Zimbardo discusses how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world. He says that there are six main time zones that people live in: two focus on the past (Past-Positive, Past-Negative), two on the present (Present Fatalism, Present Hedonism), and two on the future (Future and Transcendental Future). He notes that we all divide our experience into time categories; the difference is how we do this. When you’re speaking with someone he or she might be thinking about past experiences, and ignoring the present. And you might be doing a cost-benefit analysis and thinking about the future. I think that this might play into the ‘energy’ we bring to any given interaction – the way phrase and tone can trigger emotion.
You can find out if you are a Past-Positive or a Transcendental Future-oriented person by taking his Time Perspective Inventory. I also found this very cool animated video which probably explains it way better than me.
I love the idea of time travel that happens in our own brains, across our own lifetimes. Ain’t science cool?
‘If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make’ ~ Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency
Comments
That little video was mind blowing – thankyou for that … now my brain hurts and i want to sit down…
i’m mourning with you.
a – because of the end. endings are good, it had to be done, but still…. it’s over??!?? and then, i must admit, i wasn’t all happy about this one.
b – because it has been fun to share excitement over something as silly & shallow as as tv series with a few people across the globe.
sas Replied:
‘endings are good’
Yes!