"Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind."

Extract from Burnt Norton by TS Eliot (part of the Four Quartets series)

See also the fascinating life and work of the somewhat eccentric John William Dunne, an aeronautical engineer by trade, and speculator on non-linear time by hobby, born in Co. Kildare in 1875.

(Image courtesy of: http://acepilots.com/airplanes/country/british/dunne-biplane/)

I Have Measured Out My Life In Coffee Spoons

T.S Eliot reading "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"



The protagonist Prufrock can perhaps be seen to echo our ideas of The Flanuer, adding a dimension of introspection, crippling self doubt. Prufrock explicitly states the need for a public persona, "To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;", in Prufrock our fears of the collective are lived out. The Flaneur moves through the city, observing and consequently is observed. The city as described by Eliot does not offer respite from the rigors of life, instead amplifies them causing even the most mundane and seemingly innocuous to become sinister. The moments with which Prufrocks life is punctuated are transformed into elaborate acts resulting in self questioning to the point of madness.

How could the scheme offer a place for the individual to be at ease in the collective (actually any of our growing cast), the trivial must be inscribed with value and similarly daily ritual must not descend to monotonous task. I am not entirely sure where I am going with this, however one thing that has been emerging is the importance of the persona of the individual and also the place of ritual in the forming of said persona. Must we question the value/importance of collective life in order to realise the necessity of a place for the individual?