Why do we remember the past but not the future? Stephen W. Hawking

 

“Why do we remember the past but not the future?” was just one of the many questions raised by the author about life and time. I found myself reflecting for a long time about this life’s questions… and yes, that was something memorable.

 

About a year and a half ago I ended up buying a used book at the book fest in Brisbane – Australia, organized by Lifeline. I bought it for a few dollars,   it was the 1991’s re-print and judging by its condition it was never read but kept somewhere humid. I bought it because I knew the title, “A Brief History Of Time” by Stephen W.Hawking, however, I knew it was a hard read.

 

A couple of weeks later I was reading another book by Sir Richard Branson where he mentions this book saying that he knew just one person who fulfilled the challenge to finish this masterpiece that talks about everything from the Big Bang to the black holes. I think that was the real reason behind why I decided to bring it with me on my -over 6000 Km road trip- around Australia. But guess what? I didn’t even begin it!

 

The weeks past by and the months too… until the 14th March 2018, the news of author’s death shocked the world. I said: “that’s the sign! I need to read it!”.  A couple of more months past by till I finally decided to start this book, with a single promise to my self – that it would be a serious reading, and not a recreational one – I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I stared at the sky since the beginning of it…

 

I took my time, 47 days to finish a 200 pages book, but it was worth. Sometimes I was too overwhelmed to proceed or simply too tired to read it, so I read 5 books on the side, and whenever I was ready I came back to it.

 

I will admit, I didn’t understand everything I read nor I would be able to explain all those theories, but I love the feeling I had throughout the reading and the questions about the universe that I now have too.

 

Chapter 9, talks widely about Time and its arrow, and the question: “why do we remember the past but not the future?” was a very smart doubt. Many people, probably the majority, would say that it’s because the “future” hasn’t happened yet… but that’s not the way I interpreted it. I felt I see something more, way deeper than just that…

 

According to what is explained, everything starts in a situation of a high order, but everything that happens straight after the beginning tends to a high level of disorder, compared to the initial state, going towards the famous Murphy’s law – things always tend to go wrong –

 

A couple of days later I was watching a beach volley match in the very spot where I used to work many years ago prior to my first departure to live overseas. I stood there looking interested towards the match but my mind was actually traveling miles away to all the places I have been, meeting all the people I have met, and doing all the things I have done. It all lasted a few seconds, a short period of time that made me realized that everything I did, all the people I met, all the place I visited but mostly all the decisions I took led me to that beach volley match. Was I happy to be there? Was I with the right people? Was I meant to be there watching? Was I better off somewhere else? All those questions didn’t really matter at that time, just the certainty that the sum of my decisions (right or wrong) took me right where I was and shaped me how I was in that very instant.

 

I believe that we can’t remember the future simply because we are either destroying it or creating it with our own decision at this very moment…

 

That’s it, it took me a book about the universe and its black holes to realize something so simple and so closed to me. Our future is in our hands. Let’s make it extraordinary. Create an Extraordinary Life.