Latest / Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett / Will Happen, Happening, Happened

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Will Happen, Happening, Happened · Infinite Threads with Bob Barnett

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: and time.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Infinite Threads.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Bob.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday, we talked about the idea that the past is not completely gone.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: It happened, it changed us, and in some ways, it's still moving through us now.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I want to turn that around because there is another phrase that I love.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Will happen, happening, happened.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Three little pieces of time, the future, The present and the past.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We usually imagine them as completely separate things.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, well, is out there somewhere.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Today is happening now.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yesterday is behind us.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Simple enough, right?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Except our actual experience of time is not simple at all.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Think about something that you were worried about a year ago.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: At one point, it had not happened yet.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You were imagining it, maybe dreading it, maybe looking forward to it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Then one day it arrived.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that had been the future Became the room that you were standing in.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: You were no longer imagining it.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: You were living it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Then the day ended.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: And almost immediately, the thing that you had spent so much time anticipating became a memory.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Will happen, happening, happened.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The strange part is how quickly That we move through all three of these things.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We can spend months waiting for something that lasts an hour.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: A graduation, a wedding, the first day at a new job.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then suddenly we are looking at photographs of it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were just there.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, well now it is back then.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that can feel almost unfair.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some moments take forever to arrive and almost no time to leave.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one reason that people sometimes say, where did the time go?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: It did not go anywhere unusual.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: It did what time always does.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: It moved through us While we were busy living.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think our minds make this even stranger because we spend so much time outside
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: of the present.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: We rehearse the future.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: We replay the past.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Then the present, the only part we can actually touch.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Can become almost like a hallway that we rush through on the way to somewhere else.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I do that.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think most of us do that.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: We say, when this week is over,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: when things settle down,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: when I get, when I get through this project, then, then I can relax.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then I can enjoy things.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when that future finally arrives, we often invent another future.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: We keep moving the place where life is supposed to begin.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, life has been happening the whole time.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: That, that is the part that I keep thinking about.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Happening.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right now.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: This part rarely feels as important as it will later.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's almost a rule.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: We don't usually recognize a memory while we're making it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just looks like Tuesday.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Someone is sitting across from us.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're drinking coffee.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: We are complaining about probably something very small.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone says something funny.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing, nothing announces itself.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then years later, that ordinary moment becomes precious.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: We think, I would give anything to sit at that table one more time.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that table,
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: when we were actually sitting there,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: probably had a bell on it and somebody needed to take out the trash.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, that's life.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: The moments that become sacred Later, often felt completely ordinary when they were happening.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that that means that we should constantly tell ourselves to treasure every second.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: That can become its own kind of pressure.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: nobody can walk around thinking that this might be one of the most important moments
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: of my life.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You'd never get anything done if you did.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe Maybe we can notice a little more often.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not every second, just sometimes.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is happening
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: now.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: The people I love are here now.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: This conversation exists now.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's enough.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because we know what happens next.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Happening becomes habit.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And once it does, we see it differently.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same thing, but we see it differently.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing is that memory changes the shape of time.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: A whole year might collapse into a few scenes.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: A summer becomes one afternoon.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: A relationship becomes a handful of moments that we carry most clearly.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And some tiny event from 30 years ago can feel emotionally closer than something
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: that happened last week.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe our experience of time has never really been measured only by clocks.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's measured by meaning too.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where this starts to connect to Infinite Threads.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because if the future, present and past, Are constantly flowing into one another.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then the threads are doing the same thing.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: What someone does today may shape something that has not happened yet.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: A word of encouragement can become part of somebody's future decision.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: A kindness can change the way someone enters a room tomorrow.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: A wound can travel forward too, unless somebody decides not to pass it on.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about all of this before and just recently.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: The present is always feeding the future.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine it moving like that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Then the future becomes somebody's present.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then somebody remembers it,
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: which means we're constantly helping build memories that do not exist yet.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds bigger than it is.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean that we should try to manufacture meaningful moments.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those usually feel forced.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the way we treat people today may become part of the story
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: that they tell themselves later.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: In 20 years, in 30 years.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe even a story that they carry for decades.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: We may never know.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the strange responsibilities of being human.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're living inside our own present, but we're also appearing in other people's timelines.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: To us, it may be a five-minute conversation.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: To them, it could become something that they remember decades later.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: That idea makes me want to be a little more careful with the present, doesn't it, you?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not afraid of it, just aware of it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because the present is incredibly temporary.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean incredibly.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Was the present?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's gone.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the past.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: By the time I finish saying the word now, the moment I meant is already gone.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the effect of what happened in that moment may continue.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And gosh, that fascinates me.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Time moves forward.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning does not always behave that way.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning can travel backward through memory.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Something that made no sense when we were 20 can suddenly make perfect sense at 50.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: A conversation we barely understood at the time can take on
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: an entirely different meaning after we've lived enough life to hear it properly.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the past Well, it can change too.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not the event itself, but our understanding of it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: That may be one of the gentler things about growing older.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: We get more context.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: We look back at someone and realize they were struggling with something
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: that we did not understand them.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: We forgive something.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate something.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: We finally understand why a person said what they said.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: The event stayed the same.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't change.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: But we changed.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And because we changed, the memory changed with us.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that is why time feels less like a straight line to me the older I get.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: The past keeps talking to the present.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: The present keeps building the future and the future is constantly arriving.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Will happen, happening, happened.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: There is another part of this that I find comforting too.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Something, something we are worrying about right now will someday be behind us.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that it'll turn out perfectly.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the thing we fear actually is difficult.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: But there will come a moment when we're no longer waiting for it.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: We will have lived it.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: We will know more than we know today.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually it will become part of our story.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think about that when something feels overwhelming.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: There is a future version of me who already knows how this turned out.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't ask him.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: That would be extremely convenient, wouldn't it?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I could ask him.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I know he exists if I keep moving forward.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: That idea can make uncertainty feel just a little smaller.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've survived a lot of futures already.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Every difficult thing behind us was once something ahead of us.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every good memory was once something that we had not experienced yet.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that in itself, guys, is remarkable when you really think about it.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: There are wonderful memories in your life that don't exist yet.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: People you may not have met yet.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Conversations that you've not had.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Days that you will someday wish that you could return to.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're still in the will happen part.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually, if we are lucky, we'll stand inside of them.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We will not know which ones they are.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: That may be part of the beauty.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think guys?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I want to bring this even closer because if yesterday is still moving
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: through us,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: then the younger version of ourselves may not be as far away as we think either.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: The child we were is gone and somehow still here.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: The fears, the humor, the things that made us feel safe.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe growing up is not leaving that child behind.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is carrying them forward.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: But for today, guys, I keep coming back to those three sayings.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Will happen.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: Happening.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Happened.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe life is not divided into three separate places.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we are constantly passing through all of them.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe the best we can do is notice once in a while when we're standing in the middle.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys very, very, very much.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what I need you to do, right?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Go out there and pass that on, okay?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Later, Gators.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Bye-bye.
• 15:25
  [music]