ge Luis Borges. Its a short story I had to read for my English Lit. class, and if you know me, I'm the last person to enjoy, much less recommend, any book or story that gets assigned to me in class. There is something about this one though. Maybe its because its such a mindfuck, and anyone who knows me well, knows that I get a kick out of anything that will leave me questioning. My professor said today, in class, that this is a story that needs come with a joint to smoke before reading it. First though: "How amazing would it be to get high with a professor?" Especially with my English Lit. prof. who doesn't look half bad and has the whole hippie thing going for her. I also had a recollection of the time upstate when I spent 30 minutes trying to get through a stanza in a Yeats poem without cracking up, but thats a different story in and of itself. So this Garden of Forking Paths thing is the kind that needs to be read at least twice, maybe more, and interpreted. Its not a lay back and enjoy read, its an involved one.If you get into it or even if you don't, I'd still like to recommend, what is hands down my favorite book of all time, "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman. I don't feel the need to buy many books after reading them, but I had Einstein's Dreams on order from Amazon before I even got past page 10 in the library copy. My high school photography professor once handed us an excerpt, about time being a series of images, from Einstein's Dreams. He said he hard recently begun reading it and recommended it to all of us. Normally a teachers recommendation means as much to me as my grandmother saying her friend's granddaughter is "tall and gorgeous". Tall and gorgeous most likely = freak who needs her grandmother to set her up on a date. Not happening. This, however, was a teacher I trusted. You know how you get this one teacher who is in touch with the world that exists post 1970s, which is coincidently the last decade most teachers stepped outside their home to go anywhere other then work. My high school was full of them, they were mostly ex-hippies, and some were still living the dream. This teacher wasn't a hippie, but he was part of the original punk movement. Apparently those punk kids often grow up to be normal functioning human beings if they don't slit their wrists before the age of 20, who knew. What I'm trying to say is that he was a great person who's opinion I could trust. So I listened to him, and he influenced me. He was the main reason why I still wake up at 4am on summer mornings to out with my camera looking for new images to capture, he is the reason I have blue holiday lights hanging in my room, he is the reason I have photo's I've taken hanging in my room, he is the reason I cary around a Moleskin notebook everywhere I go, and he is the reason I have read Einstein's Dreams at least 14 times. The book is essentially a collection of theories on time and space dumbed down and aestheticized to turn them into awe inspiring vignettes. Its impossible to explain without providing an excerpt. So read this for yourself, go buy it, read the whole thing, then get blazed and read the Borges story.
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19 April 1905
It is a cold morning in November and the first snow has fallen. A man in a long leather coat stands on his fourth-floor balcony on Kramgasse overlooking the Zähringer Fountain and the white street below. To the east, h
e can see the fragile steeple of St. Vincent's Cathedral, to the west, the curved roof of the Zytgloggeturm. But the man is not looking east or west. He is staring down at a tiny red hat left in the snow below, and he is thinking. Should he go to the woman's house in Fribourg? His hands grip the metal balustrade, let go, grip again. Should he visit her? Should he visit her?He decides not to see her again. She is manipulative and judgmental, and she could make his life miserable. Perhaps she would not be interested in him anyway. So he decides not to see her again. Instead, he keeps to the company of men. He works hard at the pharmaceutical, where he hardly notices the female assistant manager. He goes to the brasserie on Kochergasse in the evenings with his friends and drinks beer, he learns to make fondue. Then, in three years, he meets another woman in a clothing shop in Neuchâtel. She is nice. She makes love to him very very slowly, over a period of months. After a year, she comes to live with him in Berne. They live quietly, take walks together along the Aare, are companions to each other, grow old and contented.
In the second world, the man in the long leather coat decides that he must see the Fribourg woman again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that way her face softens when she smiles, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, sits on the couch with her, within moments feels his heart pounding, grows weak at the sight of the white of her arms. They make love, loudly and with passion. She persuades him to move to Fribourg. He leaves his job in Berne and begins work at the Fribourg Post Bureau. He burns with his love for her. Every day he comes home at noon. They eat, they make love, they argue, she complains that she needs more money, he pleads with her, she throws pots at him, they make love again, he returns to the Post Bureau. She threatens to leave him, but she does not leave him. He lives for her, and he is happy with his anguish.
In the third world, he also decides that he must see her again. He hardly knows her, she could be manipulative, and her movements hint at volatility, but that smile, that laugh, that clever use of words. Yes, he must see her again. He goes to her house in Fribourg, meets her at the door, has tea with her at her kitchen table. They talk of her work at the library, his job at the pharmaceutical. After an hour, she says that she must leave to help a friend, she says goodbye to him, they shake hands. He travels the thirty kilometers back to Berne, feels empty during the train ride home, goes to his fourth-floor apartment on Kramgasse, stands on the balcony and stares down at the tiny red hat left in the snow.
These three chains of events all indeed happen, simultaneously. For in this world, time has three dimensions, like space. Just as an object may move in three perpendicular directions, corresponding to horizontal, vertical, and longitudinal, so an object may participate in three perpendicular futures. Each future moves in a different direction of time. Each future is real. At every point of decision, whether to visit a woman in Fribourg or to buy a new coat, the world splits into three worlds, each with the same people but with different fates for those people. In time, there are an infinity of worlds.
Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions? Others hold that each decision must be considered and committed to, that without commitment there is chaos. Such people are content to live in contradictory worlds, so long as they know the reason for each.
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(Excerpted from "Einstein's Dreams" by Alan Lightman | Vintage Publishing November 2004)
And of course the usual reminder that my birthday is indeed coming up soon and you should make all my dreams come true. Its true you know: [We are the dream, You the dreamer]
Sweet dreams kids
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