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
This work is licensed under a:
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivates
4.0 International License.
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
