Living three days at once
Temporal is the word to describe my newest preoccupation. I can't tell what today is. Is today just itself? Is it merely the sun's path across our field of view as product of our rotation, one chance removed from all others to carve out a little slice of happy pie? Lately I've been thinking about how today is largely the product of yesterday. The puke you have to clean from last night's binge, or the feelings we have to sooth from yesterday's ill temper are all defining today while being remanants of yesterday. The same is true of tommorrow. In many ways today could just be a big set up for a great time tommorrow. Finishing your biology homework so you can party hard all weekend is a use of today in service of a tommorrow. Adult life seems to stress the latter. When I was younger I was entirely convinced of the first understanding of reality. As I deal with older people their days seemed largely tainted and defined by their pasts. I really don't know.
I've met a lovely lady recently. I'm not afraid of her. She's nice and funny and wicked smart and all sorts of other adjectives that do her no justice. She's the cause for this particular train of thought. She's the sum total lately of what I want to do with my today. She's leaving soon though so likely won't figure very heavily into my tommorrows, sad thought that one. And yet she taps into all my yesterdays with regards to lesbians and confidence and what sort of person I've shown myself to be. So where then does that leave me? Here and now. Hoping that I can embrace or overcome the past as need be, that I can live in the present and make the most of it, and that god willing maybe she'll see me tommorrow. The one thing I'm completely sure of is that when in the presence of a lovely lady or similarly compelling thing, the difference between then and now melts. The quantum theory stating actions in the present can change the past seems completely plausible. When in those moments, I lose my ape conception of time moving and feel myself hurtling along along time's arc as I really am. I literally stand in the same place as the world spins around me and time "moves forward" and it's all a question of how I feel about it. But I'm pretty sure that time and the universe and the like don't give a rip how I feel. well fuck them then, cause I feel pretty good.
Side note, rip torn got drunk as hell and started a fight at the cape cod theater project, rock on you man christ you.
I've met a lovely lady recently. I'm not afraid of her. She's nice and funny and wicked smart and all sorts of other adjectives that do her no justice. She's the cause for this particular train of thought. She's the sum total lately of what I want to do with my today. She's leaving soon though so likely won't figure very heavily into my tommorrows, sad thought that one. And yet she taps into all my yesterdays with regards to lesbians and confidence and what sort of person I've shown myself to be. So where then does that leave me? Here and now. Hoping that I can embrace or overcome the past as need be, that I can live in the present and make the most of it, and that god willing maybe she'll see me tommorrow. The one thing I'm completely sure of is that when in the presence of a lovely lady or similarly compelling thing, the difference between then and now melts. The quantum theory stating actions in the present can change the past seems completely plausible. When in those moments, I lose my ape conception of time moving and feel myself hurtling along along time's arc as I really am. I literally stand in the same place as the world spins around me and time "moves forward" and it's all a question of how I feel about it. But I'm pretty sure that time and the universe and the like don't give a rip how I feel. well fuck them then, cause I feel pretty good.
Side note, rip torn got drunk as hell and started a fight at the cape cod theater project, rock on you man christ you.
posted by pepekeroauc at 10:02 AM
2 Comments:
the first paragraph is a great breakdown of how, as we age, big piles of todays (the past) come to define us. But I think the great difference between childhood and adulthood is not so much between looking forward to tomorrow and being defined by yesterday, but between looking forward to tomorrow and actually enjoying today. This is, ultimately, the Point (and your post's point). Enjoying today is as close to happiness as anyone gets to be. To stop wanting to become and instead actually be. I am very bad at actually being, I only really look forward, and in that sense I am still a child. If I could enjoy reality as a series of great todays rather than a long string of tomorrows I'd be a lot better off.
But then, without the desire to become (i.e. ambition), the world would be much less interesting (think John Coltrane, not Hitler though). So both Bs are worthwhile, although without eventual simple Being happiness is not likely to really enter today.
Anyway, great post. And you're right about her.
Hey jake I enjoyed this post. I think Living in the moment is SO damn crucial to happiness, but also insanely hard (like almost impossible). A lot of people say it gets easier to live in the moment as we age. And this is why old pple are actually often happier!! So thats something to look forward to when ya get old...Also it'll be fun to get pushed around in a wheelchair. whee.
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