Interesting quote I just heard

Limb loss, nerve damage, paralysis, HIV/AIDS, Herpes, HPV, rape, murder, DUI-related manslaughter…

Any action cannot be undone, because it has already occurred, and time is linear.

Everything we do is temporally and temporarily permanent.

Temporary meaning that it is no longer relevant once we die, but permanent meaning while we’re alive, it will never change, so we’re stuck with it for the remaining duration of our conscious existence.

So i guess it would be objectively temporary, since we all die… but subjectively permanent, since we can’t change the past, which means being stuck with whatever results our actions, and/or the actions of others, impose upon us.

Have you ever heard a parent (likely most often fathers) say “i made you, i can destroy you…” ? (mine never actually said this, but i’ve heard it as a meme several times)

Honestly, everything we do is permanent. Nothing can be undone. But it’s temporary in the sense that we don’t live forever, so even if what we do is never deleted, we stop experiencing it when we die.

This gets into the issues i have with the typical witticism “permanent solution to temporary problem.”

If i live for 80 years, but the problem lasts for 200… then to me, that’s a permanent problem, even if i only experience it for the full duration of my 80 year existence. A real “temporary” problem, is one that only afflicts us for a small percentage of our total lifetime; 5 years would be “a temporary problem,” unless it’s the last 5, and doesn’t go away before death. If something begins, but then lasts until or beyond the end of the life experiencing it, then that is “permanent,” because it never changed until death ended the ability to experience it.

So i suppose that quote makes me feel not better or worse, but… somewhat vindicated, as it is yet another example of trivializing the suffering of humans, and misrepresenting the nature of linear time and consequences.

IMO, literally everything is permanent. Even if an effect lasts for a short duration and ends with plenty of time remaining, the time consumed by that effect, and the results of being affected by that effect, during that span of time, are “written in stone,” and are a permanent part of not just history, but even of the future. Once you have experienced an event, that experience stays part of you.

That quote is just another way of trying to convince people of something that isn’t actually true, perhaps out of the admirable desire to make people feel better about their difficult circumstances.

But i will always say that “prevention is the best medicine.” If you don’t allow the problem to occur, there is no requirement of solution, nor is there any effect generated by the problem. If you don’t want to clean up a mess, don’t make one. If you don’t want to leave a mess, clean up as you go, when it is impossible to avoid making one. This is one of my prime directives regarding life maintenance. If you fix what goes wrong as it occurs, and strive to know and practice how to avoid allowing wrong to occur, then there are fewer problems to solve, and the inevitable problems are fixed as quickly as possible, minimizing their effects upon us, and the time we spend under their influence. This is why it is imperative to immediately and surgically dissect and dismantle every problem, going straight to the source, in order to get a clear enough view and understanding, so that we may as quickly as possible, devise and implement the most effective available solution.

The problem with that approach is that even if you manage to avoid causing any problems yourself, you end up plagued with problems caused by others who don’t bother to avoid them… which ends up acting as a requirement for you to solve other people’s problems, for yourself, which takes time out of living. Instead of “living life,” you’re stuck solving problems created by the careless, ignorant, and inconsiderate… and even sometimes the malicious.