The Original Gold Second

"We speak of one thing being like some other thing when what we are really craving to do is to describe something that is like nothing on earth" (Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister)

Like. But isn't. Not exact, not the thing itself. Like.

How does one explain, give the meaning, not a mere semblance of the meaning? This is the ache and the yearning, the chain of being a human on earth. It's as if; like being a prisoner bolted to a cell with a heavy chain that allows one to get near the key, get near the door, nearly touch it....but not quite.

"Certain mind pictures have become so adulterated by the concept of 'time' that we have come to believe in the actual existence of a permanently moving bright fissure (the point of perception) between our retrospective eternity which we cannot recall and the prospective one which we cannot know. We are not really able to measure time because no gold second is kept in a case in Paris but, quite frankly, do you not imagine a length of several hours more exactly than a length of several miles?" (Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister)

There is no "gold second" to measure, although we do measure time with those adulterated "mind pictures." Somehow, we forget the meaning and imagery used to make meaning, which due to our forgetfulness look adulterated, unfamiliar. Because these pictures appear foreign to our present we say they are of another time. Why this is, I cannot tell.

When we read Shakespeare we must pull out our history and dictionary to understand what his meaning is....because the images, the likenesses have become adulterated. Would a gold second fade and disappear this way? Is it the gold second, the meanings that have faded, or is it us? Did someone drop the gold second and did the janitor sweep it under the display case? Are we reading backwards?

If time is moving forwards and our meaning, our images are only copies of other things; like something else that came before, then the future is only a copy of a copy of a copy, and so on. We are like wine that has been watered down, stretched out, and made clear.

Where is that original cask of wine, that golden first, and how good must it have been to have lasted all this while, after all of these adulterations?