iPhone Photo Chronicles ~ No Time Like The Present ~ |
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i was reading about the future though soon i'll be thinking about the past, and you may ask:
if i was me yesterday, and i'll still be me tomorrow, may i postulate a question? How long will i be now? Do you live for the present? Yes, but which present, pray tell!
Perhaps you live in the past, spending your present moments reliving warm memories and regretting missed opportunities. Or perhaps you pass your time planning for the future, your next holiday, a possible promotion, which may, in truth, not actually occur.
Now, here's a thing. i bet i can guess whether you would prefer a painful operation or a tough exam to be in the past or the future. And whether you would prefer a long anticipated romantic evening or fantastic holiday to be over, or just about to begin. In the past and in the future, respectively, right?
And yet, what should it matter, if we are exactly the same person from day to day, throughout our lives? All our at-some-point presents (but not right now) should carry equal weight and importance for us, as 'us' (whether past or future) if we are actually the same person throughout our lives.
Whether the pleasant or unpleasant event is coming or gone we are not experiencing its pleasantness or unpleasantness now, so why worry about it?
Having said that, what is 'the present', by the way? When did your current (present?) present start, and when will it finish and the future take over? Well if yesterday was the past and tomorrow will most certainly be the future, then that would make today the present, right? Mmm, if you like, but personally i'm glad this morning's packing is over, but i hope i'll be able to find a hotel without too much bother this evening (i'm writing this under the channel tunnel).
It seems to me that my stressful packing was in the past (thank goodness) but that my worrying hunt for a hotel is still to come (oh dear), and all of this happening in what i call 'today'. Today, yes, but 'the present' i'm not so sure.
If you perform a fancy Latin thing i can't spell, but which means reduce and reduce the length of time down we consider to be 'the present', or, seen from another point of view, extend what we consider to be 'the past' and 'the future' so much that we squeeze the present from both ends as it were, at what point would we stop?
Maybe, just maybe the past and the future would meet and we'd suddenly realise that there's no such thing as 'the present'. In which case where does that leave us right now?!
With brainache.
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© 2010 Sab Will / Paris Set Me Free - Contact me directly for photo tours, interviews, exhibitions, etc.
1 comment:
Live for the 'now' - Eckhart Tolle. He says that before you have said 'now', now has already become your past. If any of this makes sense ...
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