The Lag of the Gods

The light of the moon takes a little over a second to get here.

1.24 seconds and some change according to my "Crack" team of scientists.

So what you are seeing up there in the sky is actually where the moon was and what the moon was doing a little over a second ago.

Its takes eight and a half minutes for light from the Sun to get all the way over here.

I'm not sure if that's right, I think my "Crack" team of scientists are just guessing something that sounds good, on that one, 'cause they know I'm too lazy to bother figuring out if they're right or not like I did with that "moon" one.

So when you look at the sun, you are actually seeing where the sun was and what the sun was doing a little over eight minutes ago.

The nearest visible star, besides our sun, is one of the three Alpha Centauri Brothers, and when you look at them, you are actually seeing where they were and what they were doing about four and a half years ago.

There's about ten other stars that have less than ten years of lag.

At least a hundred and thirty-one with less than twenty years of lag.

And the ass-dragging just keeps getting worse and worse the farther you look out there.

So, when you look at the people at the end of the street, you are actually seeing what they were doing a few nanoseconds ago, compared to the people running around naked on your front lawn.

And if you hold your hand up to your face, and then move it away from you, you are increasing the time distortion in the image of your hand in the exact same way.

Oh, its not just visual, either, your sense of touch is even slower than the speed of light, your electrochemical nervous system actually has to sorta squirt messages around and stuff, but the length of the cables in your arm isn't changing when you move your hand around, so that doesn't do anything.

Yah, but the stuff you are feeling with your feet and seeing your feet do is actually a little farther back in time than the stuff you are feeling with your hands and seeing your hands do.

Well, unless yer some kinda knuckle dragger with long arms and little legs or something.

Anyways, it takes time for everything to reach you, depending on how far away it is, nothing is actually what it seems to be, everything is moving through a liquid, and you are only feeling the ripples in the water that were made by things moving around a long time ago.

And that's why you shouldn't be upset if it seems like I'm late to work or that I forgot your birthday and cheated on you or whatever, y'know, 'cause who knows how long ago all that actually happened.