The new politics of nutrition education

Abstract

At the close of my remarks, I will employ a favorite platitude of speakers. I will write: there is no time like the present. But this platitude has a fascinating philosophical second meaning that's worth one minute of our time. Actually, there is no present. Human existence has a past time and a future time, but the interval in-between, which is presumed to be present time, is theoretically not time at all. The moment behind the present is already time past, and the moment ahead, time future. Thus, the interval between is an existential unit so infmitesimal and so brief as to defy our capability to measure it in the way we measure past and future. This non-time is a leap, a movement, an action between the past and future in which the qualitative difference between the two times can be established. It is this leap between the two static infinities of time that we call the present and that provides the only opportunity for human society to act on the wisdom gained from the past in order to improve the prospects for the future. The failure to use the leap, to act, condemns the future to being no more than a continuum of the past-its unrelieved mistakes and failures to be exacerbated and its unresolved regrets to be compounded. The only way to live this interval of the present-this leap-is to act for the future. Our platitude takes on a new signifIcance. There is no time. There is no present. There is only a leap to make, an act to take -mistakes to correct, failures to undo, regrets to conquer-a future to make better than the past.