Time Travelling Thoughts

Do thoughts time travel?

On New Year's day in the year 1879, at 6 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square, London, in a building that does not exist at this time, was born a baby boy. A year later, he lost his father to a disease that still affects an estimated 9.6 M people. Tuberculosis. His name was changed by accident at baptism from Henry to Edward. His ancestors were what one might call a group of democratic socialists, these days. I think this came to bear a whole lot of influence on his writing in later years. He exhibited four key characteristics: curiosity, a free mind, a belief in good taste and a belief in the human race. Nearly thirty years later, he started a novel named "Lucy" at the time. When it was done, the novel resembled a rich concoction of warm and fuzzy optimism. Fourscore and eleven years later, he died. Only after being nominated for the Nobel Prize some thirteen times.

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A Theory of Cities and Smells

I did not know the guy. If you are reading this, then you already knew that and quite certainly you did not know him either. I have this theory, you see, and that's what I want to tell you about. I first formulated it three years ago and have since laid it on many an unsuspecting friend as a lunch or dinner conversation. So, here goes: As the name suggests, it is about cities and smells. My hypothesis (which I define as true until proven wrong for my purposes here) is:

Every city, let me teach you, has its own smell!

So simple, you think! Indulge me, anyway. I lived most of my life on shores of a wild sea. As soon as the plane's wheels violently kissed the tarmac, I could smell it before I could see it. The salt of the sea in the air. A pervasive smell just about anywhere. When I lived in the city where a singer Whoopi Goldberg introduced as Ceylon Delong is from, I could again smell it before I could see it (or in this case them). Oh, 420 (pot) friendly Montreal! And, these days, I clearly smell pollution. Again all pervasive that I can hear my lungs screaming at the top of their ...

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They do!

By now, you're wondering where is this going? You see, I did not know Henry-accidentally-named-Edward. But, THIS got me SO excited I had to write about it. Fivescore and five years later, Henry's thought snuck (or sneaked, if you are so inclined) into my head. I did not know him and I did not know he had thought my very same theory-thought, before me. It crushed me a little to know it's not my own, original thought. But, then again, who is to say it is not?

Conclusion: Thoughts do time travel.