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Suppose you knew someone who was blind. This person had always been blind. Always. Now, try to describe the color green to the blind man.

It can't be done.

If you've never seen green, you can never know what it looks like. People say green is a "mild" color. People say blue is a "cool" color. People say that red makes people "tense." Do we all just associate those feelings with the colors because that's what we've always been told?

What if we all see different colors? I mean, there are of course specific colors we see. But what if what I perceive is red is what you perceive is blue? In that case, maybe the sky IS yellow and the grass IS orange but I only think they're blue and green. Theoretically, an apple could be purple, but I see red. You see "red" too, but you don't see it the same way I do. Why are the colors called what they are? Those little picture books naming all the colors-there's no rhyme or reason to them. They just give names to colors. We learn to associate name with particular color, but that doesn't mean the colors we see are all the same.

This concept is truly mind boggling. It's completely possible, too. 

I remembered something today. It was more than a memory, it was a time or an era, if you will. I was at the lot behind Jack-In-The-Box. I'm so familiar with this lot. My church is in the building behind Jack-In-The-Box, as is my youth group, my dentist, my doctor, and my job. I'm over there at least 5 times a week, but sometimes I'm over there 10+ times a week.

I've lived in this little suburb for 10 years now. Today I remembered when I was only 6. My dad worked around the neighborhood, and sometimes my mom and Jason and I would go to Jack-In-The-Box with my dad for lunch. Jason and I played on the grass. We climbed on the big bicycle racks. We could easily sit ourselves in them. We flew to the moon and back again in these bicycle racks. Sometimes, instead of space ships, they were cars. We were from Bedrock and we used our feet to move the cars around.

The lot was so unfamiliar then. Looking back, I can remember how unfamiliar it was. In an unknown area, I act differently. I see things more. The things I see are locked into my mind, then quickly discarded because they mean nothing to me. I remember the big rocks that I could climb on. I remember looking into the window of the comic book store. I remembered the little baby furniture store which went out of business when I was 8. They sold really cute baby troll dolls. I still have mine that my dad gave me for my birthday.

To see the lot again as I saw it 10 years ago was odd. The lot had become something different. Although I know it has not changed, but my perception of the lot changed. I can't express in words what the lot was to me then, but today, I am so familiar with it that I forget what it is. I do that so often with things. I forget what they are because they've locked a place within me. I never seem to grow any older, because I only know me as me. And I-myself, the essence of me-I never change.

The world around me changes at an amazing pace. Sometimes I am lost in my world with the things that I hold dear and true and real, and I forget to realize the world around me. To realize its deep reality. The world is something I see and lock into my mind, and then quickly discard because it means nothing to me.

How can reality mean nothing to me? How can I be so comfortably removed from this world in which I live? How can we all? We all live in our little worlds with our own comfortable houses, friends, families… These things we adapt to, and they are more real to us than any war or school shooting or statistic. But then…

Then the war meets us. And then the shooting happens are our school. And then we become the statistic. We meet reality. We wonder how it could happen to us. "This is one of those things that happen to somebody else." Aren't we all somebody else to somebody else?

The world changes around us until we face up the world and see it for what it is, instead of for how we perceived it.
 

Time	03/01/2001

Once upon a time, my friend and I sat working together in an office. I saw a clock on the wall and it reminded me of something I'd read in a book. I asked my friend, "Would you rather have a clock that lost a minute every day, or one that was right twice a day?" 

"Probably the one that lost a minute every day. I would just move it a minute forward every day," he replied.

"No, you can't move it forward."

"Then I would rather have one that was right twice a day." 

"But you would never know when it was right."

"It's better than a clock that is right once every some 720 days." 

But forget the broken clocks, what if there was a world with no time at all? The idea of it is not too obscure. Time is an illusion. When the world ceases to exist, so will time. Its existence depends on people to perceive it.

In a world without time, everything you decided to do would be "spur of the moment" except that there would be no moments. Work would not be based on time but on job completion. You would sleep when you were tired and awake when you were through sleeping. I think life would be more fully lived if there were no time. We would never have a concept of procrastination. If something needs done, there is no tomorrow to put it off till. The cliché "No time like the present" would mean more than it ever can in a world with a concept of minutes, hours, days, and years.

Life without time would be grand until some moron developed a concept to mark "time". Time could easily be introduced to the world, hourglasses for example. The individual would have you believe that time makes life simpler. 

"Imagine!" the advertisements for Time would run, "You can meet your friend at a coordinated 'Moment'! Imagine! You can set a 'Date' to throw a party. People will note this 'Date' and show up all together. Imagine! You can set a Time to meet with your doctor. Simply show up at the designated Time, and you will be seen at once."

People would eat it up. But do appointments and obligations really make life simpler? Hardly. 

In fact, despite time, we still have to wait to see the doctor... So much for "Appointments." 

I hate how February only has 28 days (or 29). I'm moving along... it's the 26th. I figure I got time. Then, you know, a couple days later, it's the 28th. I figure I've still got a couple days left before a new month begins. Suddenly I look up and it's MARCH. It throws me every time. I think it's pretty dumb that a couple of emperors back in the day should be able to DO that to a society. I wish I had that much power.

But maybe it's good that I don't. 

I would do evil things.