Discourse 2: Time, The Destroyer of Worlds

                I left Facebook a few years ago during the early part of Covid-19, but I did not delete my profile as I occasionally will use it to communicate with people outside of my primary circles. (Mostly with messenger) If it were an honest endeavor and was only applied altruistically I would most likely be on it more often just like everyone else. It is a great way to connect your life with those around you and share things more efficiently, this much is hard to argue with. However, as I have come to understand the utility that Facebook and others like it serve, I have pulled away from spending any real amount of time on it. Furthermore, when I am not using it, the app is deleted from my phone.  Facebook since its inception has always been an intelligence project as well as a very profitable data mining operation. Hopefully this is something that you understand. With that said, I certainly have not missed the day to day cultural and social engineering projects/distractions that Facebook and other social media platforms push on their users through dopamine traps, among other methods. The longer you spend on these types of apps the harder it is to withdraw from them. This is how they are designed; they create feedback loop after feedback loop, manipulating both your subconscious and conscious mind. Because of this, the age of social media has exacerbated and created new and unpredictable mental pathologies. Many of these are especially dangerous because social media has become both the cure and the poison, hence, the feedback loop. According to some data, the average person spends between 2 and 3 hours per day on social media The best way to understand these pathologies is not much different than that of drug abuse, because if social media was a regulated pharmaceutical, it would most likely be a Class 1, at best a Class 2 drug. (Not an endorsement of regulation).  There is only one true way to protect yourself from such time (and mind) drains, and that is to unplug. Of course, I have admitted that I did not fully unplug, but at the least I recognize that a game is being played and I attempt to lessen its psychological impact as well as the loss of our most precious Earthy possession, TIME.

While I have disconnected from that wing of the mainstream technetronic apparatus, I still find it important to be aware of what most people are thinking and potentially discussing around their dinner tables. To achieve this, l spend precious time skimming through the various mainstream news outlets to see what common narratives are being pushed and how the opposition to those narratives are being framed. My normal circuit leads me through the following: BBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, NBC, CNN, RT, FOX, Newsmax, Epoch, and the South China Morning Post. Keep in mind my presuppositions in Discourse 1.  I treat most of these the way one would treat the comic section of the newspaper. It does not take any more time to analyze Garfield than it does your average CNN or FOX article. Often times Garfield has a more coherent story line, but I digress.

To be clear, these outlets do on occasion put out quality work or analysis, some of course more than others, depending upon the topic. This statement also applies to various Think Tank publications such as Foreign Policy, International Affairs and The Atlantic among many others. While written for a different type of audience, they are also most often devoid of “journalism” as one commonly understands the word. However, it is miraculous that some of these Think Tanks like the Rand Corporation , Chatham House , American Enterprise Institute and others are so good at times with their analysis that some of their articles end up being brief histories of the future. This phenomenon, however, is not a mystery.

A few days ago, I was following my normal cart path through the mainstream lineup when a particular story about the Oppenheimer movie that was recently released caught my attention. It was not the racy click provoking title “What’s behind India’s fury over ‘Oppenheimer’ sex scene”?   Nor was it how this title was framed, as if “India” an artificial construct could experience a human emotion such as Fury. ( I get how it is being used) Does everyone in India feel this way? No. Grouping creates consensus, and this faulty description of meaning is so overused it shows up in seemingly innocent articles by seemingly innocent authors who are conditioned to think a particular way when framing. A better title would be “Why are some Hindus upset over the Oppenheimer sex scene”?    Again, language shapes thinking. It matters. I digress.

It was in fact the subtitle “A quote from sacred Hindu scripture in the biopic has sparked debate at multiple levels” that captured my attention. I was aware of what Oppenheimer allegedly said at some point in time during the reported Manhattan Project, the famous line from Hindu scripture “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”. If you are over the age of 30, undoubtedly almost every time the atomic bomb is discussed and Oppenheimer is in the conversation this little bit of scripture is in the narrative mix, this is of course because we have been conditioned to it just like many other things. Repetition.  However, as I read the article it was revealed by an Indian author by the name of Devdutt Pattanaik that the scripture referenced by the alleged Oppenheimer quote was a mistranslation. I immediately stopped reading any further and went to my office library where I have a copy of the Bhagavad Gita. I turned to where this quote originated, Chapter 11, verse 32 and began reading. “I am death, shatterer of worlds”.. so already a discrepancy. Mind you, I have read this book no fewer than three times, but I had never considered the fact that it may have been mistranslated. I have considered and understood some of the mistranslations of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek (as well as the selective editing) but really did not give the Bhagavad Gita the same consideration.  The one that I have is called “A New Translation” by Stephen Mitchell. So, I went back to the article to see what other insights I might find, and what I found startled me on multiple levels. I have since verified to the best of my ability that Mr. Pattanaik’s translation is indeed the accurate one, although it is different from both what Oppenheimer reportedly said as well as what Stephen Mitchell translated in my copy of the Gita. Shatterer of perception this article was.

                I must go on a mini tangent here before addressing both the main point of this essay as well as the accurate translation of chapter 11 verse 32 of the Bhagavad Gita. How could it be possible for a person who considers themselves to be moral, to skirt over the events that reportedly led to the death of at least 355 thousand human beings? The narrative around Oppenheimer and his role in the “Manhattan project” is one of the most propagandized events of the last 75 years. Much has been written about it outside of the common narrative, so I did not intend to ever write about it. I am not sure what the truth is but there are things that are usually omitted from the common narrative conversation. One such element is the fact that Oppenheimer had worked with and was friends with Nazi Germany’s top theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg who was later in charge of Hitler’s own atomic program. Heisenberg was assisted early in his career by a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship and was awarded the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics for the “creation of quantum mechanics” Most people know him from his “uncertainty principle”. Oppenheimer’s role in the project, the project itself, as well as his alleged communist connections, are all very suspicious and intriguing narratives. However, they are all ancillary to the main narrative and not at all important to the important final cause.  The entire narrative is not something that is discussed too often in the public square, and there are only a handful of movies made about these events. In 1945 there was the obvious state propaganda piece, “The Beginning or the End”, which was released weeks after the bombs were dropped, warning about further nuclear development. Dozens of script revisions were demanded by Truman and the director of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves that ordered it to not question the attack on Japan and cast it in a positive patriotic light. This should not be a surprise, the movie industry itself grew out of the intelligence apparatus long before WW2 and any movies showing military action must have approval of the pentagon. A few years later the movie “Above and Beyond” was released by MGM which spent time justifying the decision to drop the bomb but did so from the perspective of the pilot of the Enola Gay, Paul Tibbets. It was not on Film again until 1989 in “Fat man and Little Boy” where charismatic Paul Newman was brought on to help sell the common narrative. It is difficult to take these narratives seriously due to the complete disregard for what amounts to be the single greatest act of mass murder in human history. Naturally, I have found folks in the conspiritainment industry who tell me that we do not have nuclear weapons nor were nuclear weapons used in Japan. While I am very short on trust, it is undeniable that something happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Events this size cannot be faked, only the cause of the event can be distorted as has been done previously.

Currently my beliefs surrounding the deployment of these weapons most closely resemble the book “The Decision to use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth” by Gar Alperovitz, and that of William Leahy, former Fleet Admiral of the United States Navy and Chief of Staff to the President.

“…. The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan… In being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard to the common barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children!”

-          William Leahy

While the movie may gloss over mass murder, it undoubtedly will also ignore the first victims of this hubris, the residents of Tularosa Basin in the state of New Mexico. This calamity is best described by a resident in her own words.

“ We don’t ask ourselves if we are going to get cancer, we ask ourselves when.”

-Bernice Guiterrez

Bernice was born eight days prior to the infamous “Trinity Test” and lived in Tularosa for most of her life. She has lost 21 members of her family to cancer since that time. It is hard to tell how many people have lost their lives due to the consequences of nuclear testing in the United States alone, but we do know that the fallout from just the Trinity Test on July 16^th 1945 reached 46 States. If interested there is an effort to seek a measure of justice through the activist group Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. www.trinitydownwinders.com

I would not have made such a weapon. Refuse. Quit. Run. Get Disappeared. It would not matter, but participation would not occur at any cost. We need to get to a place where human society encourages people to take well-reasoned principled stands. Instead of celebrating a figure like Oppenheimer, we should be using him as a cautionary tale. Just because you can do something does not mean you must. Furthermore, just because you are ordered to help commit mass murder does not absolve you from being complicit.  Of course, the materialists will spin this with Olympic level mental gymnastics and colorful rhetoric, all the while signifying one of the greatest examples of consequentialist copium. Lastly, if it was not already apparent, I support world-wide denuclearization. I digress from this tangent for now.

                I did not plan on tackling the nebulous and often times controversial topic of time so early in my discourse, if at all. In my second book I included a section titled “The Algorithm of Time”, it felt very incomplete but as I have come to understand so was my understanding to a great extent. So much has been written on the subject from so many different angles. Recently I read a brilliant piece here on Substack postulating that time was similar to a conscious physical entity. (Anamnesis by Schwabstack) The author by my opinion is a Triple 9 level thinker and that essay is one hell of a mind trip if you allow yourself to consider it, and I must admit, oddly plausible. Regardless, the point I am trying to make here is that the concept of time, its meanings, its measurements, even its geometry and metaphysics are all topics wide open for intellectual debate. We do not know much. Linear? Cyclical? An Illusion? Something entirely incomprehensible? Any thinker knows that the concept of time is a giant question, one whose concepts are important parts of many religious and spiritual belief structures.

Having understood all of the aforementioned, one can picture my response when Mr. Pattanaik provided the correct translation.

“I am Time, Destroyer of the World”

11:32 Bhagavad Gita

This alteration will hit everyone differently. It will not register for some, others such as myself, it has a profound impact as I have spent significant time studying time.  I will have to review my translations of some other texts I have been studying for any updated inaccuracies. Again, words matter.

With this new revelation, I am certainly no closer to being ready to discuss the academic or metaphysical aspects of time. However, I will discuss a personal aspect of time that this updated line of scripture immediately accentuated. This is the main point of this essay.

“I am Time, Destroyer of the World”

                Most of you have felt the sting of a destroyed world. Death can metaphorically explode upon our hearts, the Kiloton pain of an atomic blast of grief and despair. Sometimes it comes as a thief in the night.

For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.

1 Thessalonians 5:2

Other times it announces itself, as if it has chosen to require an audience to appreciate its nature. Perhaps to act as a temporary reminder that life does indeed end on this physical plane, and we must bear witness to what we are to lose as a reminder.  Whenever and however it so chooses to arrive, one thing is certain, it is appointed unto us all. Death we are taught is the enemy, something apparently defeated by 99.9% of the material world, keeping us distracted right up to the moment we perish. Telling us right at the last second... almost.

As I mentioned earlier, Time is our most precious Earthy possession. This fact is never more acutely real than during the course of our lives when a cherished loved one departs this phase of existence. It is then the veil of the material world loses its grip upon our perception, and we see clearly for just a moment the fragility of our temporary existence. The false promises of immortality laid bare; the illusion of permanence fed to us by a world that promulgates constant distractions, disappears in a wisp. Was it ever really real or was it all just a dream? What did it all mean?

Recently I lost someone that I did not expect to. I am not at all unfamiliar with grief nor sudden loss, but that is not to say it gets easier, but one gains a particular frame of reference in how to deal with absence, both materially and spiritually. However, this type of loss was new to me because time had become the destroyer of my world. The new translation struck a nerve.

My girls, when you are young, it is natural to feel like middle age to late adulthood are so far away, almost to the point of non-existence. Without discussing the metaphysics of the ages of man, we know enough about how biology affects the perception of time and how that perception quickens every moment we age. I was warned of this phenomenon in my youth, but I certainly did not comprehend it the way I do now. Perhaps I lost sight of it, distracted by the race of the world, raising children between paying the bills. Time here moves quicker than it did in my youth, but I did not appreciate how much quicker. It is hard to explain that to someone but if you have experienced it you understand without question.

I felt as though I had just seen her yesterday, but it had been a decade. I loved her no less today than I did the last time I saw her. But here I was, faced with the reality explained yet not really appreciated in my youth, that time does indeed speed up and it is fleeting. She was my sister, but both of us became distracted by the demands and diversions of life that we let a decade go by before we had any real personal contact. We exchanged pleasantries on the holidays and major life events, but we were in effect growing apart.  I could feel it deep down for the past few years, a subtle tick tock, telling me I need to change the nature of my relationship with this person. Yet, I managed to always procrastinate because I told myself the lie we all manage to tell ourselves, I had plenty of time. A month before she died, I had begun the process of really reconnecting with her. I wanted to get our children together as we had always spoken of in our youth. A week before she died, I had sent her an email, a rather long one, detailing aspects of my life she had missed, with the obvious anticipation of her reciprocating, so we could pick up right where we left off…almost.

I was told the email was well received. That information does provide me comfort, but of course I wish we had more time. How could I be so careless with Time? Luckily my last words said to her in this realm was “I Love You”.

What more can I ask for? The Lord appoints our time and who am I to beg for another moment? I conveyed to her how I felt and for that I am eternally grateful. But I still miss her deeply. If only I had spent my time better.

That is wherein lies the lesson. The expenditure of time. While it is absolutely true that Time can be a Destroyer, it has to by law of opposites, to also be a creator. The producer of all possibilities.  All things in time. However, being a builder, a creator, takes the purposeful application of free will.

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

We should value our time more by being intentionally mindful of how we spend it. You want to understand something? Spend time. You want to learn an instrument? Spend time. You want to be a better person? Spend time. Want an informed opinion? Spend time. Want to grow your faith? Spend time. Want to be closer to God? You guessed it. Spend Time. Time changes all things, and that change can be intentional. But it isn’t forever. Nothing here is. Whatever you build in your life, if you hold yourself to only one duty, let it be to have something to show for your time spent, especially with things that matter most. Never leave things unsaid. Learn from this lesson. Time is fleeting. My Sister was going to meet my children… almost.

                To close this out, I cannot help but return to Hiroshima on August 6^th, 1945, where roughly 66 thousand people immediately ran out of time. Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Children, Spouses, Lovers, Friends, and Sisters. Immense sadness. I feel their loss because I am human and have the God given ability to have empathy. I do not want others to feel the pain of a destroyed world. Not even my alleged enemies.

I would like to think it is possible for us to look at all other human beings as if they have worth and value as well as not having the infrastructure of civilization be orchestrated by a bunch of deranged consequentialists. Perhaps this entire school of ethics is a natural cope of the materialists, the humanists. It is ironic how humanism is actually the inversion, the anti-human. How we got here in our current state of mass apathy and detachment is its own behemoth topic. Likewise, any topic about possible solutions is a vast and nuanced topic, both are outside of the scope of this discourse.

I think we are overlooking a great number of things as we are all stuck in our own personal versions of a feedback loop to varying degrees. One may not spend enough time tending to their spouse or children, perhaps a friend or other family member. Maybe it is something not directly important but indirectly, something easy to get lost. Let us try to remedy that.

If time is not spent intentionally, we are passively living. I call this being on autopilot. We are all guilty to a degree, but the real question is what are we going to do about it? Often, we mechanistically go through the motions of life moving from one circumstance to the next without willful deliberation. We waste so much of our precious time all because of the illusion of more. How we live matters, for this life as well as the next. But we only get one shot.  In closing, my advice I hope to consistently take myself, make sure when you spend your time, you are living on purpose. Because Time is the destroyer of worlds. Create the one you want now, while you still can.