The Problem With Timelines

I've got a big problem with timelines. They stink. This whole pre-occupation with the line is not good. I remember in grade school, timelines were used incessantly to show the various progressions of different aspects of history. I recall the timeline of invention and the timeline of civilization. Progress doesn't happen in a steady, continuous fashion. That's a fallacy.

Here's an analogy that illustrates why one line doesn't make sense: A class room of elementary students meets at the school house each day. From all over their town, they make their way to the building where they learn to read and write. In an abstract sense, their journey from home to school represents an intersection of lines as each student comes from a different location to meet at the same place. At the end of the day the students leave school and return home. The school day and the lessons the students learned that day become a finite point in time and space. They are an aggregate of an insection of lines. This routine goes on for the entire school year. At the end of the year, A timeline of this achievement might show a straight line connecting the hundreds of individual school days to show a false lineage of the school year and how the students arrived at their present state of literacy. It discounts the true synergy of the achievement. Just as no student stayed in the physical confines of the schoolhouse for the duration of the school year, neither did they in the intellectual sense. The process of learning, discovery, and all kinds of evolution is not a linear progression. So the timeline is restrictive by its very nature. It's one single line. It can't the show the true nature of intellectual intersection that often results in a breakthrough. (This was the premise of the BBC show Connections that chronicled the unlikely alliances, coincidences, and associations that produced advancements in the pre-industrial England).

This is the same notion that Stilgoe nurtures in his work, "Outside Lies Magic". Lines are everywhere in our lives. Lines may be roads, or power wires, or railroad tracks. It's okay to follow them to see where they go or where they came from, but don't be afraid to stray from the right of way.

One of the most profound extensions of this rejection of the timeline came from Steven Jay Gould. Picture this graphic timeline. We've all seen it. It's the march of man through time as he evolves from the monkey. We've seen it in text books, we've seen it in literature both for and against the theory of evolution, and if you've been to Venice beach, you've seen it as a clay model. Gould said the notion of evolution moving from primitive, unintelligent life forms to complex, intelligent life forms is misplaced. He said: "life shows no trend to complexity in the usual sense — only an asymmetrical expansion of diversity". Diversity trumps complexity. I love it.

Part of the reason I've created this blog is to look back. I'm a nostalgic guy and I enjoy remembering the good times. It may be myopic, it may be romantic, but if I can make one connection with another person who remembers the same thing, then it's worth it. The other part will chronicle my personal search for the pearl. The pearl: that elusive McGuffin. The promise of a fulfilling life.

If you give a camera to a child and develop the film they shoot, it resembles the roll Dustin Hoffman's character reveals at the end of "Rainman". There are pictures of manhole covers, bridge girders and unframed shots of landscapes and people. This is life: random snapshots of ephemera that add up to something in the end. Not knowing what it means at the moment it happens is no excuse to dismiss it. Savor the moment, then save it. Through the lens of reflection, someday you may realize what it's all about and don't connect the dots with a straight line.