Agency of Time

     Ted Chiang’s “Tale of the Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” tells four stories related to time travel in order to enlighten oneself.  The alchemist, Bashaarat, emphasizes throughout the tale that the past and future are fixed and cannot be changed by entering them, but traveling through his gate allows people to learn.  The only believed way to change the past is through atonement and repentance (Chiang 25), but it cannot truly be said if this is what grants agency to time, as it may have been part of the fixed nature of time from the beginning.  This calls to question people’s control over their own lives, because if people are not able to change their past, present, or future there must be an understanding of continuing to find knowledge and happiness, even if it has been pre-decided.

    Fuwaad Ibn Abbas, Bashaarat’s current customer, listens to him retell three tales of people going through his Gates in Cairo.  These tales show the different ways working with one’s past and future can impact people’s lives, but not change it.  The decision to enter the Gates was already decided before the customer walked through them or not.  This can contribute a layer of comfort to knowing that there are no wrong decisions to be made, as all will lead people to their correct and ultimate fate.  It is also a disconcerting feature, though, as it means people are not the ones who are controlling their lives and their agency lies with some other force. 

    The first tale Bashaarat tells recounts an experience of a man named Hassan who met his future self. The entirety of Hassan’s life becomes due to the interventions and warnings from his future self, but these warnings were also given to future Hassan when he was twenty years younger.  Young Hassan questions Old Hassan’s knowledge, to which he is simply told that he learned it from himself (Chiang 23).  While this attempts to give agency to Hassan’s even older self, it does not answer who the first to give warnings and lessons to the younger self was.  This further begs the question of who holds the agency in Hassan’s life, as it is not young Hassan.  Agency must lie within the forces of experience that Hassan is enduring and creating.  The universe already has the answer of how things will act, but his actions and experiences are still necessary in order to continue the tale pre-written. 

    Hassan’s experiences eventually provided him with a life of wealth and happiness, while others, like Abbas, never experience this.  Abbas decides to go to the past to find if he can see if there is a way to change things based on his sincere atonement and repentance.  His wish to save his wife twenty years prior is based on the life of sadness and remorse he has lived for the twenty years since she was killed. He finds, though, that this past is still fixed, yet that she had forgiven him for their fight.  This knowledge is enough for him to find closure in her death and begin to live his life more happily again.  While Abbas is no true exception to the rule of change, he still learns about the importance of reflecting on time and learning from the past.  Abbas, though, changes the way he saw his life going, as he believed he would continue to live in sadness, but found peace and solace from returning to the past.  No one can truly tell if this was different from the plan of the universe in the beginning, but the knowledge of experimenting with time allowed him to live a more comfortable life.   

    Chiang’s tales play with the people’s agency by relaying that time cannot be changed, and therefore all is fixed.  This allows people to feel okay with the path of their life in now knowing that it cannot be ruined by wrong decisions, but it also prevents people from having the free will that humanity typically expects.  Bashaarat emphasizes that the only reason to enter the Gates of Years is to learn, which is truly the only thing granted to those that enter.  This new knowledge, though, that people can live their life with, does not change the way the future was meant to play out.  It simply contributes to what was already known by some force that is in control of an individual’s time.  Time is a precious entity that cannot truly be controlled by individuals but may actually be manipulated by some other being. 










Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Descartes

  In our class reading, "Descartes" we are introduced to the science behind the human emotions and laughter. Philosophical thinker, Descartes makes a controversial point that laughter usually stems from a place of ridicule and scorn. Even the laughter that stems from joy is because there are small traces of scorn attached to it. Furthermore, Descartes leaves us with, "And it is not wrong to laugh when we hear the jests of another; these jests may even be such that it would be difficult not to laugh at them; but when we ourselves jest, it is more fitting to abstain form laughter, in order not to seem to be surprised by the things that are said, nor to wonder at the ingenuity we show in inventing them. And that makes those who hear them all the more surprised" (Descartes 25). I think this idea is the most thought-provoking of them all, as I apply Descartes' philosophies to real life. How come we are so comfortable laughing at others, yet become sensitive and defen...
Read more

"Let it Snow"

The chapter, "Let it Snow" by Sedaris, is yet another example as to why Sedaris' book is not what it seems. My expectation for this chapter was for Sedaris to reflect on a childhood snow day spent with his siblings. Rather, Sedaris tells us the comical, yet troubling, account of a snow day spent trapped outside his house. Clearly feeling overwhelmed and exhausted from the pressure of having to entertain children during a blizzard, Sedaris’ mother takes an atypical approach to parenting–locking her children out of the house. “Selfish mothers wanted the house to themselves, and their children were discovered years later, frozen like mastodons in blocks of ice” (Sedaris 88). Sedaris and his siblings respond to their mother’s cold heart by having their sister Tiffany lay in the street, hoping she’ll get hit by a car, which will of course, teach their mother a lesson. The chapter ends with Sedaris’ mother trudging outside in no snow gear to go and get them, and the children as...
Read more

The Future Can Be Changed Now

            Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie makes compelling arguments throughout   Dear Ijeawele  for how to raise a daughter to become a feminist. However, the most compelling one she makes, and the one that exists beneath all the others is this: the changes people make now can serve to create a better future. Through her allusions to Chizalum’s adolescence and adulthood, Adichie tells her readers that the decisions people make in the present can positively or negatively impact their futures, and the futures of their children.               In her twelfth suggestion, Adichie urgers her friend to teach her daughter about sex and start early. This simple act, being open and honest with one’s daughter about the nature and realities of sex, can have a lasting impact. Adichie writes, “Tell her that her body belongs to her and her alone, that she should never feel the need to say ye to som...
Read more