Antinatalism and Depression XCIV: Potential Everythings
Channel: Anekantavad
Date: 2012-09-19

Potential human beings? How about potential everything? How about potential itself?

(This is a very long, very weird video. It also concerns one of the most fascinating concepts this thickie can imagine.)

In a sense this picture represents our everyday perception of time
http://www.city-data.com/forum/attachments/photography/79293d1304286366-daily-random-photos-one-pix-per-dsc_0327.jpg
Each element in this picture can represent something that we see, know or imagine at some point in our lifetime.

- The double yellow line is someone we have known since childhood (but not always, since we can see where it "begins", at least in terms of this photo), and who is still alive - as demonstrated by the fact that the lines continue to "play out" from the bottom right corner of the picture.

- The bus in the foreground represents someone we recently made contact with (as it has recently come into our view) but have ceased contact with in an even more recent past (since the bus has become a total "object" that has started to recede in its totality toward the vanishing point).

- The bus in the distance represents someone we knew long ago, and have increasingly faint memory of - as evidenced by its small "size" in terms of perspective, and by the fact that it continues to diminish as it heads toward the vanishing point.

- The broken white line that starts at the bottom center-left of the picture represents someone (or something) that we have had off-and-on contact with for a very long time. There are times when we are in direct contact with them (or it) and there are times when we are not. Each period of contact gets smaller and less distinct as it recedes toward the vanishing point.

... and so on.

The thing is, this entire image of time is only one of an infinite number of "vantage points" that we have experienced throughout our lives. The bus that's about to disappear from view wasn't always a diminutive speck on the point of vanishing from view. It once had the same appearance as the big bus. Our view of that bus has been distorted by the oncoming rush of things appearing from the window's peripheries. As new things appear, they alter the "value" we place on everything in the entire view - and these things are themselves in turn diminished (relatively speaking) by new things ... ad infinitum.

That's one view of time .... but that's not the only one.

1 - There are as many "rear-windows" as there are sentient beings, and each of the things in this image has its own "rear-window" (at least if they are sentient). Imagine trying to portray them all!

2 - New things will appear, endlessly (as it were). We know they will appear, but we can't "see" them .... yet. These things include Benatar's potential human beings. They also include absolutely everything else that will ever happen - in the same multitudinous, chaotic "torrent" alluded to in (1).

Now ... turn around, stop looking out the rear window of the taxi, and look over the driver's shoulder. What does THAT look like? That's not just "the future" (or, more accurately, a view of what "the past" will look like in the future); it is Becoming itself. It is Creation itself. It is Potential itself.

Let's not look just at Benatar's "potential human beings". Let's have a look at the full monty.

Benatar has attempted to portray just one teensy aspect of the onrush of Becoming. What about everything else?

(The first person to sit through this whole video needs either a medal or a stiff drink. Perhaps both)