Spiral Time

There is evidence that speakers of Aymara of the high Andes, now in Bolivia and Peru, think of time differently than everyone else in the world. They see the future as behind them and the past ahead of them. This is a truly mind-bending idea. Most of us describe the future as ahead or in front of us, and the past as behind us. The Aymara call the future 'qhipa pacha/timpu', meaning back or behind time, and the past 'nayra pacha/timpu', meaning front time. They gesture ahead of them when remembering things of the past, and backward when talking about the future. These are not mere mannerisms, the researchers argue; but they are windows into the minds of Aymara speakers, who have a conception of future and past that is different from just about everyone else's. The authors say the Aymara speakers see the difference between what is known and unknown is the most important aspect in life and what is known is what you see in front of you, with your own eyes. It's hard to imagine how to look at time like this on a daily basis. But that too exits as a unique frame of reference.

THE PAST IS KNOWN, SO IT LIES AHEAD OF YOU.

(nayra, or "past," literally means eye and sight, as well as front.)

THE FUTURE IS UNKNOWN, SO IT LIES BEHIND YOU, WHERE YOU CAN'T SEE.

©MOMA New York/image of the painting 'Persistence of Memory' by Salvador Dali/1931

Time is a mystery. Seconds drip away into eternity. Where do they go? Do they disappear into the same space where all the dead people go? We think that past and future are the loose ends of a string which we try to tie together continuosly. Meanwhile the present blinks away right in front of our eyes. Tomorrow melts into yesterday like in a Dalian space, leaving the 'persistence of memory' in our minds eye. Many scientists think that time is a spiral construct. It makes sense in a way, because all the planets are spiraling and the whole universe is also moving in a spiral fashion, expanding or rotating around something bigger. So there is no linear time possible. There is an organic time, which is the rhythm of the sun and the planets. We all have this organic clock inside us where as the human time is our creation, which is a psychological time in our mind.

It is difficult to observe my mind each moment and listen to my thoughts one after another. When I am not doing some concentrated work, thoughts are all over the place, so fast and random. Mind just jumps from one thought to another. It is a hit and miss, even if I can track and catch them sometimes. So after a while, I usually give up to work or to distractions, thinking that there is no point in stressing about it, not to go so hard on myself and I just surrender to the flow. Then the 'auto pilot' takes over. By evening I hear myself asking, where did the day go? What did I do? What happened to all those hours? Obviously I was not always aware of the time I had spent day dreaming.

When we are young our aspirations about an exciting future are strong driving forces. Too many places to go, people to meet, and too many things to do. There are numerous choices in front. It takes a big chunk of our lives to find out what we are really good at, if at all we are lucky to find that 'call' in life. Then we need more time to master the skills to do it perfectly well. This 'time crunch' humans face is very real, especially towards the middle of life, even when there are other ways of looking at the concept of 'time'. It shows that the 'feeling' of life is truer and real than analyzing it’s various aspects. Analysis has a delay in real time where as feeling happens right now. So the real experience matters than the commentary on it.

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The Aymara people have existed in the Andes in what is now Bolivia (and, to a lesser extent, Peru) for over 2,000 years, according to some estimates. Some scholars, and many Aymara themselves, associate them with the highly advanced civilization centered at Tiwanaku, though due to the lack of written history this cannot be proven conclusively, and does not fit with the linguistic evidences.

reference: New York Times - science /June/2006