past is the future & future is a past..all along we were prepared?!

"Eastern and Western concepts of time are as different as the two conceptions of space.

In the West most people believe the past is something we have left behind and cannot see unless we turn around, while the present is where we exist momentarily as we stride confidently facing forward into the future, in front of us.

But in a more accurate metaphor, the Chinese liken time to a river and human awareness to a man standing on its bank facing downstream. The future approaches him from behind and becomes the present only when it arrives alongside where he is standing and he is first conscious of it out of the corner of his eye. Thus, before he can assimilate the present, it is past already. The present washes away to become history in front of the observer. The recent past is nearer and it can be seen more clearly. The distant past is far away ahead of him, its features only dimly perceivable.

Instead of squarely facing the oncoming future as in the Western metaphor, this more accurate allegory acknowledges how the present, as we all know, continuously blindsides us from an angle of vision that ensures that we will be unprepared."


- Leonard Shlain, Art & Physics.