Sunday, April 12, 2026

Tick-Tock Tractatus: Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                

 

 

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations


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2.  Past: memories, tradition
      habits, fixed, artifacts

 

2.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The past is a debt that the present
     can never repay.

The past is a heavy trunk we eventually
     use as a chair.

The past is a mirror that shows us everything
     but not the face we have now.

The past is the shadow
     cast by the body of the present.

The scaffolding of the world is built
     from the wood of yesterdays.

"We never remember days, only moments."
- Cesare Pavese

BU13

 

2.2
Muscle Memories

The silence of decades dead
        echo endlessly
in every muscle and vein...
Her kisses are remembered
by my tender love lips.

BU19

 

2.3
If You Have a Habit

If you have a habit
You acquired it in your past.
        Bad habits reside in the now.
New habits require:
        Six months of your future time, and
girt and correct actions all along.

BU2932

Atomic Habits. By Jason Clear, 2018.

 

2.4
Ghosts from the Past

I am a ghost
of walking memories
        a past embodied in me
        a past only visible to me
a past defining the real actual me.

BU2885

Yesterday, song by Paul McCartney

 

2.4.1
Evidence from the Past

                Time passes past the past,
        No forensic evidence remains,
No clue to catch that Thief of Time---
        Little evidence, so suspicious,
                Is nowhere and everywhere.

BU3259

Forensic Evidence

 

2.5
Memories Are Made of These

The sundial remembers the light,
     never the clouds.

Each hour is a door that locks itself
     after I pass through.

We remember the past as it
     was supposed to be.

A memory is a fact that has
     lost its ticking pulse.

The past is not a hitching post;
     It's a signpost or a guide post.

BU61

Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd

Doctor My Eyes, Jackson Brown, Playing for Change

Time - Quotations

 

Table of Contents

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 

3.  Present: now, here-now, day, moment

 

3.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The Pause is measured by the time
     it takes me to decide.

An Instant is Imaginary.

"Now" does not specify a specific time.

No time like the present.

One today is worth four tomorrows.

The present is a theater where the play
     is always in its final act.

Time is the only sculptor what works
     without a chisel.

Time is the loom, but the
     thread is purely our own.

BU295

Months and Seasons - Quotations

 

3.2
pristine possibilities

in every moment
today is created anew—
          pristine possibilities
     changing opportunities
          depending on you

BU14

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons, 2002-

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, 2004.

 

3.2.1
Precious Flowers in the Sky

To dance at the still point of the Time beyond time,
     Beyond pasts, within futures, this Moment
Now and forever, beyond minds.
     Not knowing of Who or why
We stroll in rose gardens, and Love.

BU2652

Precious Flowers in the Sky

The Gardening Sutra

 

3.2.2
Truths about the Future?

For the moment, Now, for me,
the world is the case.
Yesterday, the world was
actually the case.
Tomorrow's events are not the case.

Only the Present and Past are Actual
The Future is bounded by possibilities:
uncertainties, unpredictability, chances,
accidents, unknowns, contingencies ...
And quasi-informative necessities.

        God knows the future some say.
                I don't think that way.

Some statements about future events
Are neither necessary nor impossible
and have no truth value.

BU3338

Aristotle's Sea Battle

Problem of Future Contingents

Contingency

Reading Wittgenstein 1975-

 

3.3
Gertrude Returned to Oakland

"There is no there there"
For the Present is aware, that
the Past is no more, only
my obscure faded memories;
just nothing left here anymore.

BU3132

- Gertrude Stein

 

3.4
Many Meanings

'Is' is an insistent perplexity
of sometimes being identity
of sometimes being temporarily
of sometimes being actuality
Yes!, 'is' even postulates = equality.

BU3137

 

3.4.1
The History Told in the Present

     Mythical time
unfolds in present time
unravels in literal minds—
real, imagined, fictionalized,
     Always in Now-Time.

BU2872

 

3.4.2
Time Don't Care

          ticking my life away
indifferent clocks
          everywhere

BU 2649, GC §13

Cuttings: Haiku

 

3.4.3
The Hustles of Time

                        time runs
        does not wait
                        hustles fast
lingers not
cannot stop

BU2866

Bundled Up: Quintains: Volume 5

 

3.4.4
Pausing for a Moment

The Pause is measured by a spoonful of time.
He paused and loudly yawned.
Everyone paused for a moment of remembrance.
He paused and took a deep breath.
It was the pause that refreshes.

Pausing at Lake Quinault

 

3.4.4.1
Try to Name the Moment

'There is no
non-arbitrary way
to pick out what is meant by the
uniquely true
and real present moment."

BU3228, GC §31

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, Adrian Bardon, p. 91

 

3.4.4.2
45 Milliseconds

Our sense of the Present
Is not continuous.
It starts and stops in
small discrete steps;
Every 20 to 60 milliseconds.

Felt Time, by Marc Wittmann, 2017, p.27

Paying attention decreases the
milliseconds of awareness smooth flow.

We don't notice the jumps, like watching
a 35mm film at 50Hz, 30-40 frames per second.

BU3354

Film

Film History

 

3.4.5
Instant: Zero Millimeters Per No Seconds

An instant has zero duration;
unlike miles per hour
or meters per second.
Even a millisecond is much longer.
        An instant, like a point in geometry:
        Dimensionless, timeless, imaginary.

BU3047

Instant

 

3.4.6
Really! Nothing Changes?

Some old hold strictly to the Present
As actual given Reality.
                The future is nothing.
                From nothing comes nothing.
So nothing changes---claims Parmenides.

BU3029

- Parmenides (510 BCE)

 

Table of Contents: Index

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 

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