Surfing the Ripple of Existence

A guest post by Auggie Mallinson

Auggie’s graphic conception of time and existence.

I’ve found myself considering the nature of time in an effort to keep my mind occupied during long hours at a part-time restaurant job. As I stood one afternoon at the host stand with a mandatory smile, and with no guests in sight, I slipped into a sort of meditation. I wanted to try and catch each moment of Now. I wanted to see if I could force myself to be aware of the eternally-fleeting-instant. I noticed that it was difficult to pinpoint "the Now" because, despite th illusion of being aware of a big web of existence, one can only ever operate in a string of Nows. Holding the Now with the mind is like trying to catch a trout swimming downstream with bare hands. Even if you get it between your hands, it will surely slip away. Yet this Now is the only space in which we exist.

Our conceptions of future and past are no more than ideas in a string of Nows. Considering the chief concern of Rene Descartes' Meditations, a meditator could imagine a world where, despite any prediction about the future made in the Now, and despite an apparent memory of a long string of Nows that brought her to the Now in which she currently resides, there is no real way for her to know for certain that the universe will not simply end at 3:12 a.m. tonight. Furthermore, there is no way for her to know for certain that every single memory that she has is not just a convoluted backdrop, falsely implanted, for a scene that will only last a few minutes. If this were the case, she would have no way of knowing that she was in this strange mini-drama that plays out over decades. This version of reality is entirely possible, no matter how improbable or ridiculous it seems. Therefore, all she really has for sure is the Now.

Auggie and younger brother sailing off Key West, Florida (a few years back).

Furthermore, regardless of whether time is continuous or discrete, for the sake of making it easier to talk about, let's designate some unit to be the shortest length of time in which the mind can operate: let’s call it "the instant.” At any instant, some change is occurring in the body: nutrients, toxins, germs, etc. are entering the body. The chemical balance in the brain is shifting as neurotransmitters fire off. Cells are dying. Cells are dividing. From any one instant to another, the body that you inhabit is slightly different.

To look at it one way, the body is a collection of different life forms (cells) that have been joined together and organized into what we understand as an organic being. Somewhere along the way, however, this organization of many life forms has become self-aware. Somewhere between a single cell and all the cells that make up a body, the organization becomes host to sentience. Despite this, not one of the individual life forms that make up the organization can be considered to be the source of any meaningful level of sentience. On the other hand, patients with brains that are split down the middle, severing the corpus callosum, the two hemispheres of the brain can no longer communicate, and both become separate, equally-functioning, sentient entities. So there is room for more than one you in you. What is it then that makes you, you?

I don't know if I will ever have a satisfactory answer to this question; but asking it can lead to profound insight. Perhaps the understanding of self as a single, unified entity comes from our own desire for mental and emotional stability. It's easier to understand myself as just me than to wonder whether it might be that the body that I call mine produces a bundle of independent thoughts. It seems less radical to question my sense of self when I can't even nail down what my self is. So, what if my sentience is my thoughts recognizing a pattern within themselves. In other words, these thoughts have recognized that they are hosted by some life form and, like the brain seems to always want to do, it finds a pattern: the Pattern of Self.

“Now is the crest of whatever ripple you are observing.”

If this Pattern of Self is a ripple, then the splash is the beginning of the first being. This original ripple causes the formation of all other ripples. Perhaps they are all really just different expressions of the same ripple? I do not know. But I do know that the Now is the crest of whatever ripple you are observing at a particular moment. It may travel across the pool of time in one constant direction, but that would not be the only way of experiencing it. Rather than by the nature or properties of time, it is through the Pattern of Self that we experience time as we do. If this is true, then the Pattern of Self cannot exist in time in any other way than as the crest. It may remember where it had been, it may be able to predict where it is going, but there is no way of knowing for sure, since there is no thing that is the ripple. It is just a pattern moving across water. Likewise, you might recognize yourself as a pattern moving through time and space. You would only exist in the Now.

I’m not sure I’m on the right track here. I may disagree with my own thoughts down the line; but this thought has me stirring nonetheless. Stirring and yet still. If I’m right to think about life and time in this way—that we can experience nothing besides the Now—we find that ruminating on past resentments or else fretting about future calamities are two expressions of a living hell. So if we lose sight of the Now, the immediate presence of eternity, what else is left?

Augustine Mallinson (1997-2021) was the beloved oldest son of Jeff and Stacie Mallinson and studied history and political thought and graphic design in college. He went on to become enamored with the history of food and craft cocktails. He lived his art in life, music, friendship, and kindness. He spent countless hours discussing philosophy and existence with his family.