A few people have recently shared with me that they think that time doesn’t exist. Physicist-me believes that it does but certainly accepts that our language for it is human-created. Adding to our observable dimensions of space, the math works when we include time and creates predictable results. Still, philosopher-me knows that our conscious minds only ever experience one moment in time, one we might call “right now”.
We remember yesterday but the past is immutable; we can neither change it nor relive it. The future is speculation. While we can predict it or influence it we never actually experience the future, even as our sequence of “right now” moments acts INTO the “future of presents-past”. Every single “right now” of years- or days- or minutes-past are untouchable history; the future always remains just out of reach. We live in the now. We ONLY live in the now.
Our feelings are now. Our reality is now. We can’t impact what we have already felt. Frustratingly we also don’t have any power to shape what we currently feel at precisely “now”. Whatever we feel now has already arrived, it’s here. Nothing we do can ever affect the moment that’s present when we choose to act. The best we get is to use the action of a “right now” to set up a direction for future “right now”s that are yet to be. Fortunately, that can play out in a way that feels like we are affecting our present and that’s usually enough. In truth, however, we are only ever effecting change on the near-future.
We don’t live in the past nor do we live in the future; all we experience is the flow of the present. This truth is very zen and invites non-attachment as a guiding principle. Expectations and hopes are mindsets and emotions we feel towards future events. These aren’t necessarily bad but neither are they a reality, merely an imagining of one. Being hung up on something in the past, something that cannot ever be changed, doesn’t serve us either. Learning what we can from the past, keeping an eye to the future with decreased-emotional attachment, and acting in the ever-moving present is all we get to to.
This truth can make it awkward to steer life decisions. Years of training and conditioning have me wanting to meet someone and build a life together. But there are no guarantees. Even getting married, pledging a life together, doesn’t mean that it won’t change. Through that lens it makes me want to appreciate each individual quality moment I can with good people. Living for the moments can also make it hard to also live for the big picture, or it can confuse the issue, especially for people like me who like to have a plan and a direction. Living into fluid moments is harder than living a life of understanding a structure and living boldly within the knowledge of such.
For my last couple years I have been living in polyamory. I haven’t had more than one relationship at a time yet, but it’s not out of the question. Sometimes it’s hard to live in the now, even with awesome and amazing people, when agreements and boundaries don’t easily present a growth path forward. By that I mean not being on “the relationship escalator” where a dynamic may progress from dating to cohabitating to growing old together; sometimes people just want the connections, the experiences, the moments. Do we need a growth path? It’s sometimes hard to feel content with not moving some kind of life plan forward when I’ve been so used to it. It doesn’t mean i need one, only that i’m well-conditioned to have one. Everything is made up and I can change my motives, my reality, my direction.
In 100 years nobody is going to remember my choices in life; in the big picture, what we do really doesn’t matter. On the other hand, what we do REALLY DOESN’T MATTER, so do we do the thing, whatever that might be? It can be hard to find the drive to motivate for any given thing if nothing really matters, yet also hard to rewire habits, mindsets, and motivations that already exist. It can be hard to let go of finding that drive as well, in non-attachment, especially after living a life that’s always had one.
What am I gonna do? I’m gonna live my life. We’re in the present, always, and all we’ve got is this moment…
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