The opening pages of chapter 10 seem to me absolutely clear. The usual idea of ‘objective time’ is here rejected as a construct rather than something real. In a sense this means giving priority to subjective time, though that oversimplifies things, and in fact is not what the chapter says. But I put it this way because of the emphasis on the past as the lineage of this moment; that is, the one that I am experiencing now.
Notice that this means that the past is part of the present. Is this true in experience? It’s a good question to look at.
Another nice image here is that of “recorded time.” Reading it this time, I am reminded of the same phrase in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, in a famous speech:
Tomorrow and tommorow and tommorow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
Read as a guide to the nature of linear time, this is a pretty interesting quote. Looking in terms of our own experience, what is the significance of “petty pace?” Why “syllables?” What is the nature of the “light” that the past sheds, and why does it lead only to death? And why is death “dusty?” Worth exploring, no?
I will stop here. I hope to return to the rest of the chapter later.
Jack