#temporal bandwidth

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944), Schwarze Begleitung [Black Escort], December 1923. Watercolour and India ink on paper laid down on the artist's mount, sheet: 8 3⁄8 x 6 ¾ in.; mount: 13 ¾ x 12 in.

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“Temporal bandwidth” is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar “Δt” considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are. It may get to where you’re having trouble remembering what you were doing five minutes ago, or even—as Slothrop now—what you’re doing here,”

5/29/2024

I have been an attorney for 43 years today. I was sworn in as an attorney in California on May 29, 1981. I was 25 years old, almost 26. 43 years later, I am 68 years old, almost 69. I got on the treadmill this afternoon  at there gym , popped in my ear buds and “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang, 1980, started to play. I began to run the events of the last 43 years through my head. Between the rhythm of my body on the treadmill, the beat and the spirit of the song and my memory parade, my present became fused with the panorama of my past. I had reached solid personal density. 

In the book" Breaking Bread with the Dead” by Alan Jacobs, Mr Jacobs describes the theory of a character, Kurt Mondaugen, in the novel “Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon. In the novel is a passage in which “Mondaugen’s Law” is described:

“Personal density …is is directly proportional to temporal bandwidth. Temporal Bandwidth is the width of your present, your now…the more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona.

Mr Jacobs goes on to say at page 23 of “Breaking Bread With The Dead” that “presentism, is being “wholly creatures of this particular intersection of space and time." “To achieve escape velocity from presentism.”  “You have to step out and away and back and forward, and you have to do it regularly.”