Commentary: A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Dr. Stephen Hawking

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“Why do we remember the past and not the future?” ⁣
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My grandfather was a physicist. I found his copy of Stephen Hawking’s 1988 book “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes” at just the right time— just as I am beginning to include ideas about time and consciousness in my own writing. ⁣
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My grandfather’s passion was always beyond my reach as someone who is VERY bad at math. Yet all the same I’ve always let my gaze wander up to the stars. But, unlike my grandfather, my interests gravitate towards the stories the stars tell, what they tell us about ourselves, how the search for understanding the cosmos helps us understand ourselves. Particularly, our understanding of Time fascinates me. The rules we prescribe to it and the rules it prescribes to us feel so strict, and yet we may not know as much as we think we do. How can something so mysterious dictate our rules about the mechanics of the universe? I found myself asking this question often while reading Hawking’s book (especially when Hawking writes terms like “imaginary time.”) ⁣
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And, beautifully, I found that asking these questions— being curious as a physicist would be— expanded my thinking on my writing process, of all things. ⁣
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By allowing my mind to wander the universe, it returned to me somehow new; I noticed holes and problems with my process that I’d never seen before. I’m entering a new phase of my writing, not because I read a great work of Fiction or a guide to writing, but rather because I ventured into the unknown, outside of my comfort zone, into the stars where my grandfather before me had set his gaze, where his spirit still lives. Now, I’m there too. ⁣