on relativity

The factor that most encompasses our humanness is this: our ability to create. This act oozes out even when we are not paying attention. We are a perpetually-running being, whether we realize it or not.

The second factor that most encompasses our humanness is this: to determine what around us we choose to give our focus and attention. Today’s modern distractions often, and are even built, to pull us away from our ability to do this.

In extended times of distraction, we build not sandcastles, but small collections of hills of sand, never giving each pile enough time or attention to make these naturally appearing hills something more, something of our own ingenuity. This is okay in itself. I urge you to ask yourself too: is that is what is right and best for you now?

There are times when we benefit most from states of quiescence. If you are in this state, accept and go with it in full. And when you are ready, it may be the moment to once again accept the power of your mind and ability to hold perspective on whichever point of reference you choose. Because whatever it is that you make your focal point, everything else will stand relative to it.

How did I jump to that conclusion? Let’s explore relativity, as explained by Einstein…

“Einstein… realized that our idea of time is something we abstract from our experience with rhythmic phenomena: heartbeats, planetary rotations and revolutions, the ticking of clocks. Time judgments always come down to judgments of simultaneity. “If, for instance, I say, ‘That train arrives here at 7 o’clock,’ I mean something like this: ‘The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events,'” Einstein wrote… If the events in question are at some distance from each other, judgments of simultaneity can be made only by sending light signals back and forth. Working from his two basic principles, Einstein proved that whether an observer deems two events to be happening “at the same time” depends on his state of motion. In other words, there is no universal now. With different observers slicing up the timescape into “past,” “present,” and “future” in different ways, it seems to follow that all moments coexist with equal reality”

When Einstein Walked with Gödel

“Wherever you go, there you are…” My high school biology teacher used to remind us of this. And the saying reminds me too of an example of the theory of relativity I’ve heard before, that if someone embarks on space travel going at the speed of light, and returns home, they will find their sons to be older than themselves. Wherever you go, there you are. So it matters not whether even your sons or daughters, parents, relatives, closest of friends, are at any point separate from yours. We are gifted by simultaneous moments with them. Yet our moments touch tangentially as we explore and experience all of life on our own paths.

So why not make the focus of your attention something of your own will? Why not decide for yourself, that “my life’s meaning comes from this thing.” Because anyways, the influences we experience from others are ultimately moments, created out of others’ focuses. Who would be so affected by you guiding your attention towards the things you believe are of most import? Einstein may say: no one, as this is, in theory, simply the nature of this world.

Come back soon for my thoughts exploring our ability to create (where it comes from, and how we may take greater hold of it).

thanks for reading,

hina

march 13, 2021

p.s. the book mentioned in this piece is When Einstein Walked with Gödel. If you start reading, I’ll be joining you, as I just recently started!