We have this idea that time passes in a steady flow in front of our eyes, always at the same steady speed. We chop it into little pieces and call them seconds, minutes, hours…even days, weeks, months and years. But some philosophers show us how to think of time differently. Bergson’s concept of “duration” for example, which Deleuze picked up and developed further (using cinema as a tool to expand our thinking about time and movement).
So, here’s a couple of photos I took the other day ….
In the first one, I noticed the stone circle (don’t know the history of it, but I suspect it’s a pretty modern creation actually…) and behind them in the distance, the mountain range. What’s the life of a mountain range? How quickly, or slowly, does it change? What’s the perspective of a mountain? That last thought, brought to mind Herman Hesse’s short story about a boy who wishes he was a mountain (in the Strange News from Another Star collection).
Then, in the second one, I focused on the tombstones instead…..how they too have their own duration, and how they mark the shortness of a life, and the length of a memory.
Heroes Not Zombies 
[…] Too often we find our lives are so full of…..what? Stuff, tasks, duties, distractions?? And time flies past so fast. But time, of course, isn’t something that exists outside of us, it’s an experience (as Bergson, I think, says with his idea of “duration”). […]