1. How do people change? Can you describe how various events change people? Can others see those changes?


We are always changing, never the same from minute to minute, second to second. It can hardly be said that I am the same person I was as a child, a few years ago, and, I would argue, five minutes ago. Within us exist dialectical processes that drive change from the inside out as we move through life, with different facets of our self coming into conflict and reaching a synthesis. We invert and revert, bend and twist, fracture and unify. All we go through contributes to who we are and will become. Our interactions with the outer world are similarly dialectical, with us taking in our environments and expelling ourselves into them. We are shaped by the world and in turn we shape it. Specific events can lead to revolutionary change in us, which are more visible to others, but change is continuous and never ending. Other people may miss the subtle changes we go through every day, though I think we are all tuned into them on some level.

2. How do you feel and experience time? Can time be wasted? How?


I feel time as a mental sense of progression that speeds up and slows down, at times seeming overwhelmingly fast and at others feeling excruciatingly slow. Often I will be hit with an awareness of my place in time and how much I am wasting, scrambling to catch up. My own mortality looms and urges me to fill my life to the brim with experiences, so as not to waste a single drop of my most precious resource. It most certainly can be wasted, and a large amount of it is. When I am not putting all my efforts into doing, seeing, and becoming all I could, then I am not using my greatest resource efficiently.

3. Is there anything that cannot be described with words? What are they? If so, how can we understand what it is if language does not work?

Yes. Nothing can be fully described with words. If you had a rock, could I ask you to describe it to me in complete detail so that I could replicate it exactly in my mind without me first seeing it? No, but the image I form could be very similar to the original rock. The rock in my head and the rock in reality could share a similar color, texture, size, weight, and general “rock-ness,” but without perceiving the rock through my own eyes I would never be able to know exactly what it is. This experiment shows that language is imperfect even for describing simple things, but that does not mean it is not very, very useful. Words can refer to existing things so that our minds reference those things upon hearing the words, which lets us encapsulate experiences inside language. But without first having perceived what language is referring to, we cannot truly know what a thing is.

4. How do you anticipate events unfolding? How can you observe such unfoldments in your environment?

Typically I will already have a feeling about how events will unfold by the time I consciously think my situation through. This feeling may be specific, like “I will fail my next test but pass the final,” or a vaguer sense of optimism, pessimism, dread, apprehension, impatience, excitement, etc. towards the future. This feeling will shift and flow over time as I gain greater clarity or other factors, like my mood, change my attitude towards the future. While I know that events can only unfold in one specific way ultimately, I usually troubleshoot by imagining what could go wrong ahead of time so I can mentally prepare for it. I expect A to happen, but it may happen through ways X, Y, or Z, which all change the nature of A. If for some reason A does not happen, then B will most certainly happen, and then I will have to recalibrate. I can observe the unfolding of events by… watching them unfold? Not sure how else you would do it.

5. In what situations is timing important? How do you know the time is right to act? How do you feel about waiting for the right moment?

Timing is always important. To be a good conversationalist you must keep rhythm with the other person and have comedic timing. If you own a business you must watch the ebbs and flows of the market to know when to strike and when to play it safe. As you plot your course through life you must align your career, family, hobbies, ambitions, and potential disasters all on the same track, hitting milestones at the right time and flowing smoothly from one stage to the next. The right time to act is now, always, in some way. There is always something that can be done to improve yourself and the world around you. Of course, we cannot do everything all at once, and by mentally constructing maps of the future I can judge where to place certain actions in time. I dislike waiting to be honest, I can be very impatient, but I understand that some things must come in their own time.