The Illusion of Time (being an agent of healing)

Act Your Age

I've never felt any age. I don't feel 34. I didn't feel 33. I probably did feel 21 but only because of what it allowed me to do (drink excessively). But now that I sit here and think about it, I don't think any age has come with any feeling that was due to the age itself. I remember being a child and thinking about how old my 30 something year old mother and aunts were and how their experience of reality must be so different from mine. But now that I'm 30 something, I can confirm that the feeling of being alive isn't much different than it was when I was a child. And I think that's because, inwardly, we are all children still. What we call aging, is more often just conforming which is why the phrase 'act your age' is so funny— because that's precisely what we are doing. We are acting the way a 25 year old should act or the way a 47 year old should act but deep down we all know that it's just an act. I think that what we actually are—not our bodies or our thoughts, that certainly have changed with time but rather the consciousness that witnesses these things, is born at age zero and remains at age zero throughout the entirety of life. This reality forms the basis of the idea that time is an illusion because awareness, experiencing, and be-ing is always now.

The present moment is the only moment that is ever actually experienced. Though it definitely doesn't seem that way because, for most of us, the past carries a ton of weight and the only thing that keeps a lot of people going day to day is hope for the future. Yet, the weight we carry from the past and the hope we hold for the future are both experienced in the present. And, in my experience, having too much weight from the past or too much reliance on the future makes the actual present very difficult to enjoy. Which is why, in order to truly move forward in our lives and fully embrace the present, we have to both reconcile with the past and not cling so tightly to our vision for the future.

One of my favorite teachers says, 'You can't leave a mess behind and go beyond—it will pull you back", in regards to progressing along the spiritual path and what he means is, despite how put together our physical lives may appear to be, if underlying that appearance is a mess of unresolved trauma, karma, unfulfilled desires, and unrealized potentials, then it's only a matter of time before the mess we swept under the rug trips us up. Spiritual or not, I think one of the biggest reasons why many adults struggle to find happiness is because they forgot about the child that they once were. And therein lies the nefarious illusion that time plays on us: that just because our bodies, brains, and the number of revolutions we've made around the Sun have grown in size, that we are no longer affected by what happened to us as children.

Children, like the elderly, are often treated as second class citizens whose opinions don't matter. Which is why, for many of us, we could not wait to be 'grown' because being grown seemingly brings with it the sovereignty that we all know inherently is our birthright. However, even though turning 18 or 21 will outwardly make you an adult, what it absolutely will not do is inwardly nullify the experiences that we had in childhood—the experiences that our identities are rooted in and, whether we know it or not, strongly influence what we desire as adults.

Time Don't Heal Shit

You've probably heard the phrase, "time heals all wounds", which is such a load of bullshit. Time heals nothing on its own. Time doesn't have the capacity to heal, it merely provides the opportunity for healing. But if that opportunity is not intentionally seized, then time does nothing more than create a superficial buffer between ourselves and our wounds which may give the appearance that wound has been healed when in reality, underneath the debris that has covered the wound over time, it is still as raw, open, and tender as it ever was. It's commonly understood that 'we all have our vices' but what's less discussed is 'why'. While I believe it's possible to enjoy a drink, or a joint, or a hookup, or a bet, or whatever your particular poison may be without using it to directly numb pain, I think we greatly underestimate how often our enjoyment of these vices is tied to avoiding pain that we've carried from childhood. In that sense, our desire to grow up has nothing to do with wanting to be older but rather wanting to have as many means of escaping the pains of our childhood as possible. All time does in this equation is help mask the true origins of our suffering.

Though time itself is an illusion, change is not, and one of the things that changes with time, is our bodies. When we talk about getting old, it's usually our physical selves we refer to— the gray hairs, the sun spots, the pains and stiffness in our joints. These visible signs of aging reinforce the idea that time is passing, making it feel undeniably real. But time can only change matter (something else that's an illusion but that's a conversation for another day, lol) and who we really are is not matter, but Spirit. While our bodies bear the marks of time, our inner world, where our wounds reside, where the record of all the transgressions made against us is kept, remains untouched by the passage of years. Our physical changes on the outside distract us from the stagnant wounds we hold on the inside leading us to focus on the outer signs of aging while neglecting a constant, underlying reality that is hindering healing and growth. This disconnect between our aging bodies and our timeless consciousness creates the illusion that time has done its work, when in fact, it has simply moved us further away from the awareness of what actually needs to be healed.

I've had the pleasure of interacting with many older people over the past few years and something that I find extremely fascinating about many on the back halves of their lives is observing and hearing about how their childhood trauma is still affecting them. I'm talking folks in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who still think about and whose daily lives are still influenced by things that happened when they were 5, 6, and 7. It's fascinating because I grew up under the presumption that adults, especially those 40+, had it all figured out. I grew up under the presumption that once you hit a certain age, you moved beyond immature thoughts and actions—you transcended pettiness and insecurity—you graduated from the 'school' part of life and were free to spend the rest of your years on a permanent, 'adults only' summer vacation. But what I've learned through conversations and observations of my older friends is that life's lessons never end.

Wisdom comes not with time but with awareness and if someone has not intentionally placed awareness around healing their wounds, then no amount of time is going to help heal them. Though someone may outwardly appear to be mature, on the inside they could be as fragile, as sensitive, and as reactive as a little child. I was baffled to become a grown up and learn first hand that the "grown folk's business" I was often told to stay out of as a child was not some complex, mature behavior that my childish mind couldn't fathom but rather was gossip about so called 'grown' people behaving like the children they've always inwardly been. In my opinion, adulthood is a conspiracy that we all agree to to maintain some sense of order while in public. But in private, when no one's looking or when we're in the company of those we feel comfortable being our authentic selves around, we all drop the ruse and reveal that on the inside we are the same age that we've always been.

Timeless Connections

Time alone is a poor bonding agent. I knew my mother my entire life which was 26 years at the time of her death but we got closer than we'd ever been before during the last 6 months of her life because we transcended the time that separated us into identities as 'Mother' and 'Son' and connected on the level of soul where we are the exact same age. When I was a senior in high school, I was in the running for a scholarship that would essentially give me a free ride to any public college or university in the state of South Carolina. This was obviously a huge deal for me being a first generation college student who had seen how loans had destroyed his mother's financial life. I didn't want to take out loans but wouldn't have been able to pay for my education without them so I was really, really hoping to get this scholarship.

Now, my mother was a bit of a pessimist, a consequence of being in survival mode for most of her life, so when I told her I was a finalist for the scholarship, she wasn't particularly excited for me. She basically told me not to get my hopes up and to just accept the fact that I'm going to have to work my way through college. I was set to find out if I got the scholarship or not during my high school's awards day which happened to fall on the same day and time as my little brothers' awards day at his elementary school. This meant that my mother would have to make a choice of which son she was going to support. And since she didn't think I was going to get the scholarship anyway, coupled with the fact that my little brother would probably miss her presence more than I would, she went to his awards day instead of mine. To my pleasant surprise, I was awarded the scholarship in one of the most life altering moments of my life. It was a surreal moment and I was elated for a few seconds until I gazed into the crowd and realized that there was no one from my family out there to experience this incredible moment with me.

That shit hurt me so bad. And that's not to say that my mother made the wrong decision. It was an impossible decision to get 'right', and I knew that—which is why I committed to pretending like it didn't bother me that she wasn't there. But deep down, a part of me resented her for missing it. Not just for not showing up for me but for also not believing that I had a chance to win the scholarship in the first place. Again, I know this was based more in her own doubt, insecurity, losses in life, and not wanting me to get my hopes up to just get hurt than in her not believing in me but at the time, it felt like she didn't believe in me — and it hurt. I carried the pain of this wound for 8 years and for 8 years it played a part in a myriad of factors that made me avoid visiting home. For 8 years, I convinced myself that I was 'grown' and in control of my life when in reality, I was still being controlled by the wounds of my youth.

Though I had grown a man's body, on the inside I was still the inadequate, un-seen, unloved little boy that I so desperately wanted to prove I had grown out of. So, when the threat of cancer forced me to confront the potential of losing my mother forever, that little boy exposed himself again. That little boy was reminded of how much his mother meant to him and finally mustered up the courage to tell his mother that her not showing up for him that day cut him deeply. And in doing so, that little boy did something that time clearly didn't have the power to do—he healed.

You know how with some friends, you could speak to them often for 5, 10, 15 years and yet, you still never really feel like you know them. But with other friends, you may only speak to them once or twice a year and yet, when you come back together, it's like nothing has changed; your connection feels as solid as ever and you can just pick up where you left off. My theory behind this phenomenon is that we meet some people with our heads and we meet others with our hearts. The ones we meet with our heads are typically superficial connections because they are based primarily in the realm of thought and identity which, like time, is only relatively real. Whereas those we meet with our hearts, though seemingly less prevalent in the physical, are actually more secure because they are soul connections which are unaffected by time and thus, absolutely real.

One of life's great mysteries is why God seemingly gives some of us more time than others because if we perceive a life's value by its length, then it would seem that God values some lives more than others. But losing my mother's body to time at the young age of 50 revealed to me the eternal aspect of her being, of my being, of being in general. Time simply does not exist at the level of the soul and no matter how real time, and everything that happens within it, seems to be it is ultimately just a canvas for the story of life to unfold. Just like with a movie, what gives value to the story of life is not how long it lasts but how engaging it is, how memorable it is, and how deeply it makes you feel. And just like with a movie, you know that the story of life is great when cause the illusion of time starts to fall away and instead you are inspired to be fully engaged in what's happening right now.

Meet Luna!

The highlight of my current experiences is that I got a new bike! I know, I know, I just got a new bike a few months ago so why get another on?. Well, it turns out that the bike I bought before was too big for me which caused unforeseeable issues after long term use. To be honest, I also kinda settled for that bike. I was ready to ride again and wanted to get back to it as soon as possible, so I went to the bike shop and settled on one that made the most sense price wise. But I never had any sort of attachment to it, as if a part of me knew that it was only a temporary fix. My old bike was causing me some intense wrist pain on every ride which both made me want to ride less and also made me not want to practice handstands and those are two things that are pretty critical to my sanity at this point in my life which means I needed to find a new bike asap.

Long story short, I did a lot of research and that coupled with my own experience with my last bike over the past 3 months gave me a much better idea of what I was looking for in its successor. When I walked into the bike shop, they literally had the bike I was going to buy sitting on a pedestal (platform), as if it was waiting for me to arrive. Not only that, the bike is purple (metallic lilac, to be exact) and has my initials printed on it, though the M.S. technically stands for "Midnight Special", the model of the bike. Then I took it for a ride and that was practically all she wrote because it fit well and rode like a dream compared to any bike I'd been on previously. I immediately felt a connection to this bike. A much deeper connection than the bike I'd previously spent 3 months with. So much so that I felt the need to name her as soon as possible, something that I never got around to doing with my last bike. Her name is 'Luna' (short for Lunalina Seraphina 🙈🌚😂), she is a dream come true for the little boy on the bike in today's featured image, and she is further evidence that destined connections transcend the illusion of time.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜