{"id":383,"date":"2012-01-13T06:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=383"},"modified":"2012-01-13T06:00:50","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T12:00:50","slug":"time-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=383","title":{"rendered":"Time Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEach time is true, but the truths are not the same.\u201d ~ Alan Lightman, Einstein\u2019s Dreams<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As I type this, it\u2019s my present and I\u2019m writing to you in the future about my past. You will read this in your own \u2018present\u2019, which will still be my past, so I am traveling in time. Or at least my words are.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve often thought my favorite book was supposed to be\u00a0 a classic SF tome like Robert A. Heinlein\u2019s Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em> or Edgar Rice Burroughs\u2019 A Princess of Mars<\/em>. I\u2019ve read and loved them both multiple times (and discovered connections between the two), but Lightman\u2019s book affected me more than they did. I\u2019ve read Einstein\u2019s Dreams<\/em>, essentially a meditation on Time, by Alan Lightman a dozen times since it was recommended to me (and others) by the writer Mark Waid at a comic book convention in Kansas City sometime in the 90s.<\/p>\n

I bought a copy the same day, found an audio version later (read perfectly<\/em> by the actor Michael York) at my local library then bought a copy of that, too, from somewhere on the internet. I\u2019ve gifted multiple copies to friends. I\u2019ve recommended it to other writers with the same words that Waid said to me: \u201cIt will change the way you think about Time.\u201d I was drawn in to the book by the idea that it was the dreams of a young Albert Einstein on the eve of submitting his Theory of Relativity for publication. A powerful place to set a book.<\/p>\n

Einstein\u2019s Dreams<\/em> is short, a quick read that stays with the reader, working its way deep into the imagination. One chapter presents the idea that Time travels slower at higher altitudes. This is proven out by physics, but Lightman imagines people who deliberately live up high in order to gain that slightest of edges over their groundhog brethren in living longer. Lightman himself is a theoretical physicist but it\u2019s not obvious from the way he writes:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor it is only habit and memory that dulls the physical passion. Without memory, each night is the first night, each morning is the first morning, each kiss and touch are the first.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I could have picked either Heinlein or Burroughs as my favorites based only on how many times I\u2019ve read them. There were other possibilities, too: China Mieville\u2019s Perdido Street Station<\/em>, Harlan Ellison\u2019s Shatterday,<\/em> Audrey Niffenegger\u2019s The Time Traveler\u2019s Wife<\/em> or so many more. Instead, it\u2019s Lightman\u2019s book for the reason I gave. Mark Waid\u2019s recommendation was based on my asking him what books I should read if I wanted to write comic books. His emphatic assertion that it would change the way I would think about Time was right. Each of the books I\u2019ve mentioned here has affected me, made me want to tell stories in new ways, has stuck with me and been the topic of conversations with so many others.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s this book that tops the list. It\u2019s the one that I go back to when I\u2019m stuck, the one that reassures me, comforts me, challenges me. This is the book that lies in your future that you must read if you want to be a writer. It will affect your future if you let it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cEach time is true, but the truths are not the same.\u201d ~ Alan Lightman, Einstein\u2019s Dreams As I type this, it\u2019s my present and I\u2019m writing to you in the future about my past. You will read this in your own \u2018present\u2019, which will still be my past, so I am traveling in time. Or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[47,78,205,335,396,667,683],"class_list":["post-383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-influence","tag-alan-lightman","tag-audio-book","tag-comic-books","tag-einsteins-dreams","tag-favorite-book","tag-mark-waid","tag-michael-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}