The last couple of classes has had me thinking about past, present and future. The past is something that I never really thought about before. Sure, we all ended up in Edmonton for whatever reason but I never thought about the area past my family's involvement. To read Goyette's book and find out stuff about the area that I live in and how it was settled long before anyone in my family decided to settle is a unique perspective to think about. I now look out my backyard window onto the area where they are digging up ground for the Anthony they are building and wonder about who walked over that land and how they affected the way the land was settled, since my house borders Edmonton and St.Albert. When I thought about how the world is really all the same way it made the earth in itself seem more realistic and approachable, since I am one that has not left North America. This then had me think about my present, about how I am going to school here instead of elsewhere to take my schooling and that I did it to be in the familiar close to home. As well, thinking about Edmonton and the fact that the buildings get torn down whereas in Victoria where I was during reading week keeps very old buildings. I questioned what I thought about this demolition of the old and it made me feel sad that we are losing this past. I think that's why I love visiting cemetaries. I am always trying to find very old gravestones, because that's something that links me to the past with their moss covered words to the beautiful stone beneath. I find these markers comforting in a city that can not see the stone past the grimy moss and has to get rid of the filth. After our discussion last week I thought about how the past and the present as I know it would be gone if the world ended up being taken over by the wildlife. There would be no one to take care of the grounds in the cemetaries, no one to keep the buildings intact and no books or other sources in which to tell our history to future generations, as there would be known. Thinking about the world continuing on as it had before humans ever walked it made me realize that we do live in a circle of time, everything that was will happen again... there was the ground in which we came from, that we then inhabited and die on and go back into the earth. In some bizarre way it made me feel calm knowing that even though humans might not be around forever that the earth is pretty well it's own living creature in itself that will keep aging without us.
~quote by:Maynard J. Keenan
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You sound a bit like Solomon here:
ReplyDelete"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, "Look! This is something new"? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time. There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow" (Eccl. 1:9-11).
And even like God himself:
"By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return" (Gen. 3:19).
I suppose cemeteries are one way we remember "men of old", however intangible and speculative this act of remembrance may be. For my part, as my recitation of holy writ may suggest, questions of history and speculation about the future inevitably raise the age old ontological questions about the meaning of life and the nature of existence etc.
Graveyards represent a kind of rift between the present and past, but also the present and future, when one contemplates questions pertaining to the possibility of life after death, or things of that nature.
Anyway, great post. Love the MJK quote by the way; hopefully the next Tool album isn't far off.
I find your discussion on the concept of time very interesting. Circular time foregrounds the importance of the past in a different way than linear time does. We are expected to learn from the "errors" of our past to progress as human beings and linear time allows us to see ourselves as moving away from a point. Circular time forces us to reflect on the past in a different way, because the past then becomes our future. It allows for acts of continuance - reproduction of cultural memory - and places a different value on past events.
ReplyDeleteIs the tendency of Edmontonians to tear down old buildings a sign of our subconscious shame of our past actions? Tear down the buildings to tear down the memories?