Cycles vs. linear time? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 03-05-2003, 08:42 AM

Renaissance = 4th age is probably just for comparison's sake, so fine.

According to the author of "How the Celts Saved Civilization" (I can't think of his name right now), all humans experienced time cyclically until Abram, who was the first to break away from cyclicality to a linear experience of time, going somewhere to fulfill a destiny. Does destiny have to do with linear, versus cyclical time, I wonder? Because Tolkien writes a lot about destiny and doom. In this sense, it seems to me that the Vanyar experienced time cyclically, and so did the Teleri, and many of the Wood elves (Moriquendi), but the Noldor, and those they affected, experienced time linearly, because they swore an oath whose process of fulfillment overwhelmed cyclicality. Make sense?

03-05-2003, 08:42 AM	#4
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Renaissance = 4th age is probably just for comparison's sake, so fine. According to the author of "How the Celts Saved Civilization" (I can't think of his name right now), all humans experienced time cyclically until Abram, who was the first to break away from cyclicality to a linear experience of time, going somewhere to fulfill a destiny. Does destiny have to do with linear, versus cyclical time, I wonder? Because Tolkien writes a lot about destiny and doom. In this sense, it seems to me that the Vanyar experienced time cyclically, and so did the Teleri, and many of the Wood elves (Moriquendi), but the Noldor, and those they affected, experienced time linearly, because they swore an oath whose process of fulfillment overwhelmed cyclicality. Make sense?