11:42 PM
I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the flow of time.
The summer days are kind of blending together into a blur - a blur so reminiscent of last summer, when the days ran long and time seemed to stand still...
But despite these similarities, so much has changed in the past 12 months- I've picked up new interests, forged and broken friendships, so much more... I went back and dug up old thought threads from a year ago, and so much of what is significant to me now just wasn't present back then, or vice versa. That was what surprised me the most. Change in itself is always to be expected, but the direction itself in which my path through life has deviated hasn't been predictable; if I were to travel back to my newly-15 self and tell him about everything that would happen over the next year, perhaps only 10% would be predictable events, the rest just flying out from nowhere.
Entropy.
When I think back to the most significant events of the past year, the ones which expanded my future state space the most, none of these turning points seemed at the time like anything special.
-
Accepting that friend request on July 28th.
I had no idea at the time, but this one decision would change my life hugely. -
February 18th, two days after big things happened.
That one decision shaped the entire next few months to come. - June 1st, at ARML, conversations about life...
- so much more
It's the butterfly effect. Given enough time, every action casts its shadow upon its actor. This leads to the age-old question:
"If you could go back in time, and change one thing of your past, what would it be?"
My answer? Nothing.
That's not to say I don't have regrets. Life definitely would have been a lot easier in the short term if I hadn't in the past made some certain choices, but in the long term? Failure is a part of life.
Each era requires the termination of the previous in order to take hold. When good things come to an end, they set the stage for something new.
And mistakes are how we grow. One cannot learn to stand without taking many falls.
To future self: As you're reading this, turn back the pages of your mind and find those threads I wove while writing this. And compare:
How much changed? How different of a person are you, now that countless moments have passed?
Change is the only constant. See you later.. I hope.
tags: life