Love and the End of Time

The way we identify change in our universe is by observing events, changes, and the relative permanence (and impermanence) of things as we can see by our own perspective. Our individual perspective, in observing change, assumes that we ourselves are in fact permanent. But even in knowing full well that we will not be here forever, and will not even be the same biological and psychological phenomenon from one minute to the next, the permanence of self is completely real to us, and the only thing of any permanence that we have with which to observe the universe.

But are our individual selves really the only "permanent" object that we know? I remember something my father told me a long time ago. I was already either a young adult or rather large child - in either case, certainly certainly beyond being a baby, toddler or elementary school student. I asked him, "How do you see me, compared to how I used to be, like years ago when I was a baby or a little kid? Isn't it kind of like knowing different people, all those different imature versions of myself, and aren't I going to be quite different in the future?" It didn't take him long to find an answer. He said, "No, actually, when I see you or think of you, it's like I can see all those different stages together - past, present and future. I can't see you as anything else but you, no matter how old you are or were." I had a bit of a hard time digesting this obsersevation, but I remembered it until today. How was it possible he could see me as a person who is, was, and will be me, and his son, and yet has undergone quite substantial transformations?

I was also thinking of how we remember young people who died early in their lives - as children, students or young people. Do we freeze them in our minds at the age we last remembered them? Has a friend I knew growing up who didn't make it remained forever a child while I have grown up and left him or her behind, always widening the chasm of our age difference? No, I thought hard about this, and it's not like that. Nor do I imagine those friends and acquaintances as they "would be" now, although I might ponder the possibility. I think what happens is that I remember them through the eyes of myself at that age. As I sense that I am permanent in my perspective, I was the same person at age 12 as I am now. I can be that person and feel as I was at 12 in an instant. And a classmate who is for whatever reason no longer in my life, is universally my equal, not 5 or 20 years younger than my now-self at all.

So what can I make of all this? I think the way we know and in fact love those people close to us may in fact transfer the permanence we believe of ourselves onto those around us who we love. I'm not saying that we are blind to the physical effects of aging - we can always figure out the passage of time and the trajectory of our biological mortality. But as I am myself and have not been anybody else despite immense development, my grandmother is, was, and will always be herself in spite of her 86 years. It's really hard for me to remember her as anything but herself, even as I've known her for 29 years.

Some of this may seem quite obvious since it's all part of our everyday human family life. But, I do think that in closer relationships, and particularly where the bond of love is so strong, that the permanence of ourselves is extended to the permanence of those we love. There is nothing immortal about our flesh, and our mortality is certainly a reality. But, a part of being human is to know ourselves, consciously - to measure the passage of time and the nature of change from our own awareness of now. And our nature is to love other individuals who themselves measure the passage of time and the nature of change from their own awareness of now. At our intersection in space and time, we are connected by this consciousness of each other.