Chapter 12 Time, Life and Death in the Context of Extinction – An Essay
Time, Life, Death and Extinction
In response to the Critical/Creative Reflection article in the Extinction section of the Living Book, I am struck by how the author manages to aestheticise its melancholy when writing about death and extinction, to portray them with a sense of beauty and awe, much like Virginia Woolf's moth subjectifing its own death to facilitate its own passage into the next world; and Nabokov's "beauty must die" axiom. The author begins: “In the beginning, chaos birthed a universe by processes of formation and destruction. The natural order of the universe made the former of these forces dependent upon the latter. Planets formed in the fiery rage of dying stars …” Terrestrial lives inevitably follows the celestial path of life and death: “[D]eath is a necessary outcome of life, and death in totality is extinction […] Life exists to delay death, but not defeat it.” Next, the author describes the more nuanced concept of Time, the fourth dimension. It is “immutable, immovable, impossible to change.” However, I would argue that this notion of linearity and immutability is purely a Western anthropocentric construct. Time is not a linear concept for many indigenous cultures, rather, it is circular (Janca, 2003).
For the Australian Aborigines, there is no past-present-future that runs along an unbending timeline endlessly. Instead, events are allocated their respective places, like how an arrow finds its target, in concentric rings of time according to their relative importance for the individual or his/her respective community. The more important the event, the “closer in time” it is. For instance, the death of a beloved family member or an elder would occupy a slot in time that is closer to the centre. And even though such death has taken place a long time in the past, the emotions experienced are still raw as if it has occurred just hours or days ago. This view of time is not linear but static, timeless, eternal and circular. Apart from the death of a loved one, other examples of timelessness include the colonisation of Australia, loss of Aboriginal culture and identity, the stolen generations and land rights (Griffith, 2021).
Further, it is not only Australian Aborigines but many other cultures that do not see time as linear, such as indigenous Balinese and American Indians (Abram; Standing Bear). The spirits of their ancestors linger on even though their bodies have long gone. Stanner coined the term “everywhen” to highlight the notion of non-linear time. For instance, in Aboriginal cultural convention, the name (given or traditional) of a deceased person is not mentioned, not only because it causes distress to the family but also “call into life” the deceased spirit (Janca, 2003). The person is dead only in a physical sense. In a spiritual sense, the person is still “alive” and still plays an important role in the lives of the living. He or she is everywhere and everywhen.
To this time concept I reminisce on James Hutton – his notion of “Deep Time” in the 18th century – “no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end” (Farrier, 2016). Although Hatton was referring to linear time, the same statement also holds true to circular time. Where does time begin, and when does it end? My final reflection, though, is we must not be enslaved by linear time; try to behold circular time wherever and whenever we can, to place only important life-events near its heart, everything else belongs to the periphery. And in that context, knowing that there is extinction and there is rebirth, where in the circle of Time should we place them? Near the centre, or at the periphery? At the 11th hour or at 1 o’clock?
Works Cited
Farrier, David. "How the Concept of Deep Time Is Changing." The Atlantic, 1 November 2016, https://scalar.usc.edu/works/micro-landscapes-of-the-anthropocene/on-time-life-and-death-in-the-context-of-extinction.edit. Accessed 11 April 2021.
Griffith, Billy. Deep Time Dreaming. Schwartz Publishing, 2018, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unsw/detail.action?docID=5058720. Accessed 11 April 2021.
Janca A. and Clothide Bullen. "The Aboriginal Concept of Time and its Mental Health Implications." Australasian Psychiatry, vol. 11, issue 1, 2003, pp. 40-44. doi:10.1046/j.1038-5282.2003.02009.x. Accessed 11 April 2021.