{"id":3272,"date":"2011-01-17T21:58:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-17T20:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/?p=3272"},"modified":"2011-01-17T21:58:41","modified_gmt":"2011-01-17T20:58:41","slug":"memories-of-tomorrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/2011\/01\/17\/memories-of-tomorrow\/","title":{"rendered":"Memories of tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When something weird is going on, the best thing to do is ask somebody weird! \u00c2\u00a0But I am not sure I have anybody weirder than myself to ask…<\/em><\/p>\n

Can what we read tomorrow influence what we write today?<\/p>\n

Yesterday I wrote an entry about how things had become better and better not just in America but most of the world. This morning, I got a mail from Questia, the online library, graciously allowing me to read for free a book by Sthephen Moore and Julian Simon, called It’s getting better all the time<\/em>. The book details 100 ways in which the 20th century was a great improvement on all centuries past. From the little I have had time to read of it, it argues that this is indeed the best of times.<\/p>\n

Now, it’s not like I did not know that already. Furthermore, the book is published by the Cato institute, with whom I am already on moderately friendly terms (as in, not mocking them on sight).<\/p>\n

Still, the placement in time is vaguely disturbing, don’t you think? If I had published that essay today instead of yesterday, it would certainly have looked like the book was an inspiration, if not outright cause of my writing.<\/p>\n

I wonder sometimes. The fact that we cannot remember the future, does that necessarily also imply that we cannot act on it subconsciously? I have given you several striking examples over the last ten years, such as the time I wandered into the computer shop and asked about an external hard disk hours before my existing disk suddenly died. \u00c2\u00a0I noticed even as I was talking to the shop guy that I had no idea why<\/strong> I was there and doing what I did. Yesterday I felt a sudden surge of inspiration, but there was no external event that caused it. \u00c2\u00a0Well, at least not until this morning.<\/p>\n

I have said before that I view this similar to magnets and small iron objects. Usually the magnet will pull a needle toward it but will itself not be moved. But occasionally the magnet is on a tipping point and may be drawn toward a much smaller object by the same force. \u00c2\u00a0Perhaps time is the same.<\/p>\n

Of course, there could be other explanations that don’t defy common sense. For instance, maybe I took a particular interest in the book because I had just written about the same subject, whereas normally I would have thought “that looks vaguely interesting but I have other things to do” and quickly forgotten it. Yeah. That would explain it…<\/p>\n

Except…<\/p>\n

That first part of the entry which is not quite so upbeat? \u00c2\u00a0Early this morning I received the following quote on Twitter: “Real gratitude must be expressed in a more positive way, by asking yourself what you can do to help others ~ Ryuho Okawa”. \u00c2\u00a0Why do I get a tweet about that after I write about gratitude in that context for the first time in my journal?<\/p>\n

No matter how you look at it, that entry would have made perfect sense if I had written it one day later. But I didn’t. Instead, life presents me with the inspiration for it the morning after I upload it. Pretty fascinating.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When something weird is going on, the best thing to do is ask somebody weird! \u00c2\u00a0But I am not sure I have anybody weirder than myself to ask… Can what we read tomorrow influence what we write today? Yesterday I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-mind","category-slice-of-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3272"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3279,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions\/3279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}