WICKES
08-10-2008, 03:51 PM
Today, I came across this line in a letter James Joyce wrote to a friend about Ulysses:
"There is no past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present"
Seeing time as an illusion and existing in an 'eternal present' is central to the mystic experience. It is sometimes called the 'Now', with a capital.
Einstein, ill and dying, wrote in a letter to the relatives of a frend who had just died:
"And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this
strange world. This signifies nothing... the distinction
between past, present and future is only an illusion,
even if a stubborn one."
The ancient Greeks also made a distinction between two kinds of time: Chronos (or clock time) and Kairos ('the Now'). Spinoza, according to Bertrand Russell, thought seeing through the illusion of time was the key to happiness and enlightenment.
Does Ulysses unfold within a timeless present? Is this what Proust and Joyce meant by an epiphany? Does much great literature explore the timeless moment/eternal present? I remember a university lecturer saying that Shakespeare was clearly fascinated by the nature of time.
"There is no past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present"
Seeing time as an illusion and existing in an 'eternal present' is central to the mystic experience. It is sometimes called the 'Now', with a capital.
Einstein, ill and dying, wrote in a letter to the relatives of a frend who had just died:
"And now he has preceded me briefly in bidding farewell to this
strange world. This signifies nothing... the distinction
between past, present and future is only an illusion,
even if a stubborn one."
The ancient Greeks also made a distinction between two kinds of time: Chronos (or clock time) and Kairos ('the Now'). Spinoza, according to Bertrand Russell, thought seeing through the illusion of time was the key to happiness and enlightenment.
Does Ulysses unfold within a timeless present? Is this what Proust and Joyce meant by an epiphany? Does much great literature explore the timeless moment/eternal present? I remember a university lecturer saying that Shakespeare was clearly fascinated by the nature of time.