Pondering The Phenomenon

Paris iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ Pondering The Phenomenon ~

Pondering The Phenomenon, originally uploaded by Paris Set Me Free.

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The time is now, we vow, but time's a funny thing, you know. They say that it doesn't actually exist, or at least that it's not the same all over the place (universe) nor at different speeds of travel.

Of course, here on Earth we don't notice much difference as things go, but people who have voyaged in space are actually fractionally younger (or is it older?) than those of us who have stayed with our feet firmly rooted...

As an occasional language teacher, I'm fond of dumbfounding my students (and trainee teachers) with the idea that there is no future in English. I'm not talking about my students' likely chances of mastering the lingo, nor about a favourite Sex Pistols song (although I do play it in class to hammer the point home), but about the English tense system.

You can't actually change a root in English to make it the future; you have to add something like 'will' or 'might' and a word like 'tomorrow', or use another tense altogether like the present continuous, again with a word or phrase like 'next week'.

Other languages' verbs, like French, are future-ready, with inbuilt conjugations to fit. But anyway, I do like the idea that there's actually no past or future in life, just the present moment, and we'd be hard put to actually 'argue' that the past, as we understand it, has a real meaning other than in our present braincells.

Without us guys here to read encyclopaedias and watch history programmes, would anyone be worrying about past and future, or even the present for that matter? It's the old chestnut about existence only existing if there is someone out there to ponder the phenomenon.

Pondering the phenomenon. What a shame the Sex Pistols never added such an eloquent title to their chaotic canon. God Save The Queen; No Future; Pretty Vacant; Anarchy In The UK; Pondering The Phenomenon. Hmm, no, maybe not.

And why not...

J è  GRAB MY 20 AMAZING PARIS CURIOSITIES FREE NOW!  ç J

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