Einstein's Dreams, a book by physicist Alan Lightman, features a series of vignettes about time. In each story, time exists in a different matter -- it repeats itself, it grows slower as you move higher up, it doesn't exist at all. In one of my favorite chapters, there are two times: mechanical time, and body time.
The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.
Many are convinced that mechanical time does not exist … They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead, they listen to their heartbeats. they feel the rhythms of their moods and desires.
… Then there are those who think that their bodies don’t exist. They live by mechanical time … They know that the body is not a thing of wild magic, but a collection of chemicals, tissues, and nerve impulses. Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain.
… Where the two times meet, desperation. Where the two times go their separate ways, contentment. For, miraculously, a barrister, a nurse, a baker can make a world in either time, but not in both times. Each time is true, but the truths are not the same.
When I listen to these playlists, mechanical time ceases to exist. I hope that, at least for a moment, you lose yourself as well.
