forwards and backwards and backwards and forwards and . . .

Palindromes. 

They are amusing, clever, and challenging. Spelled the same forwards and backwards, palindromes have a rich history. It is said that Ben Jonson coined the term in the 17th century. The two most famous examples that pop (there's a palindrome!) into my mind are: "Able was I ere I saw Elba" (referring to Napoleon's exile to an island in the Mediterranean) and "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." Palindromes also refer to numerical sequences. Palindromelist.net is an extraordinary, active, live resource for this phenomenon. Stunningly, it presents a "longest palindrome" that takes up thousands of words! I would imagine that either a computer crafted it or some version of crowd sourcing collaborated to create it. 

Imagine a "Twilight Zone" or "Black Mirror" episode featuring characters who speak only in palindromes. What a challenge for the screenwriters! Just browsing through examples under "A" at Palindrome.net, one sees ratings-inducing, albeit inappropriate, bits of dialogue such as: "A car, a man, a maraca," "A slut nixes sex in Tulsa," "Ah, Satan sees Natasha!" and "Acrobats stab orca." (Don't get steamed at me; I didn't make these up; just quoting here.) Picture (aurally) the characters conversing palindromically, yet it takes a while for them to discover that is their only manner of discourse. And when they have to think about it, instead of letting it happen naturally, the characters find it impossible to speak fluently. Furthermore, viewers watching this episode are at first unaware of the palindrome dialogue. Would viewers using closed-caption subtitles catch on sooner?

In observing my mother, who is 100 + 1 years old, I see a painful-to-witness version of life's palindrome. Her regression to a simple, childlike state is not precisely a palindrome, but it has parallels. Life's video is spooling backwards, until it reaches the zero we begin with. Since the pattern is rougher and less formally precise than a palindrome, consider it a squinting palindrome, a parapalindrome. (This is not the least original on my part. It's another version of the Riddle of the Sphinx.)

Is the parapalindrome the organic sequence that humans typically experience?

In other words, is this what happens not only to our lives but also to our relationships, our jobs, our promises, our mind and body? 

Is progression-regression-progression-regression the "normal" march of time?

I think not.

That's too tidy a reckoning, not zigzag enough.

Agree?