So close to now
Based on a theory by Hermann von Helmholtz, who was among the first scientists who calculated the rate of nerve conduction in humans. Helmholtz approximated that the speed of nerve conduction in humans was between 50-100 meters per second. I have been thinking a lot about that lately - how we are never really in the present moment, how much our perception and all the signals that reach our brain and all the process that take part in our brain parts and travel that also is done by the electrical pulses that connect our body via neurons and how it reacts and activates our body.
It’s an intense process even though technically it only takes parts of the seconds, everything we experience, it already happened. It’s a bit like looking at the stars and realizing that what we see is really old light and in the current moment those specific stars might not even be present anymore.
And this is how it also felt to experience what has been happening in the world lately - as if those neurons and nerves and perception are negotiating for time, to question, to ask to refresh - there must be a mistake. It’s hard to make sense of things that don’t make sense. It’s hard to negotiate with myself and allow myself to be okay to understand that the whole truth might not be there available for me ever. The complexity and the unfairness have been really daunting for the past good while. Future, that I try to grapple with is really also feeling like that light of the stars - uncertain and paralyzed, pulsating slowly but not promising much.
It’s okay to feel and it’s okay to question reality. Another scientist, Seth S. Horowitz, who researches human hearing, balance and sleep, well, he says that the only certain way to be in the here and the now is only possible if you move away from the conscious brain. Which means no thinking, no seeing.
Hearing is the fastest sense - it’s mechanical. A suddent loud noice activates a very specialized circuit from an ear to the spinal neurons which means it bipasses the brain. Reacting body releases adrenalin - no consciousnes involved, its five neurons. And as much as I find this research fascinating, I can’t help but think about all those people who are constantly being woken up by air raid syrens several times day and night and how terrifying that presene of the here and now is.
This text was written as a reflection to the current situation going on in Ukraine right now - as of 24 02 2022.