Interesting but your interpretations do not seem to reflect my own - it would take an essay to try and unpack but it is the last sentence that brings this into focus for me “Until we as a collective human race discover steps towards valuing the past, present and future with equal attention to achieve some sort of temporal neutrality, all we have as accessible refuge is the present moment.” IMO it is owing to such neutrality that the present can be accessible as refuge - most often I believe that people inhabit past and future as refuge mostly in a negative way but I believe it can be positive. Have misunderstood? Lovely writing as always - a joy to read.
Wonderful insight and your perspective does make so much sense to me.
I think my main aim with this piece was to show how recollections of our past and anticipations for the future are often hinged upon specific particularities that connect with us (sometimes in a positive way as you've rightly said), but the present is the heartbeat of our existence and in some ways our reaction to it defines our ongoing relationship to the past and future. I think both our views speak to a broader point about how people engage with the linearity and non-linearity of time.
Gorgeous piece. I'm considering that the relationship to the present is not really a relationship because it is void of cause and effect. (The cause and effect of linear time, or past and future.) It seems relationship, in this case, requires adherence to time. For myself, the past and future are yolked to tension, either positive or negative, unless the present is in awareness, or experience. I may be way off here, floating in my philosophical bubble, far away from reality. :) And I may wake up in the middle of the night with a completely different understanding....
Thanks so much. That is a wonderful take. Causality is indebted to the linearity of time - in fact one cannot exist without the other. Linearity, in my very basic understanding, would imply the consecutive flow of events, one after the other. Maybe the present often feels liberating because it somehow sits outside of any temporal framework? It's interesting because I often wonder if I have ever truly savoured a single present moment for what it is? Perhaps not, because our minds (or at least my mind!) are often inclined to ruminate on the past and anticipate the future even whilst sitting in the present!
I wonder if I've truly savored a single present moment, too! The idea that 'mind' is wild and boundless certainly proves true when observing it within quiet moments. I feel more than I can reason that we are incapable of understanding time as we grasp it, and that an experience of the present is beyond-beyond us, yet within. This topic definitely pushes me against the boundaries of my understanding, which is why I'm excited by it! I promise to stop now LOL
"The world is bruised and bleeding. However, it is important not to succumb to its malevolence at the expense of the understated but unique wonderment that exists in each present moment." 💕
Interesting but your interpretations do not seem to reflect my own - it would take an essay to try and unpack but it is the last sentence that brings this into focus for me “Until we as a collective human race discover steps towards valuing the past, present and future with equal attention to achieve some sort of temporal neutrality, all we have as accessible refuge is the present moment.” IMO it is owing to such neutrality that the present can be accessible as refuge - most often I believe that people inhabit past and future as refuge mostly in a negative way but I believe it can be positive. Have misunderstood? Lovely writing as always - a joy to read.
Wonderful insight and your perspective does make so much sense to me.
I think my main aim with this piece was to show how recollections of our past and anticipations for the future are often hinged upon specific particularities that connect with us (sometimes in a positive way as you've rightly said), but the present is the heartbeat of our existence and in some ways our reaction to it defines our ongoing relationship to the past and future. I think both our views speak to a broader point about how people engage with the linearity and non-linearity of time.
Now there’s a subject...”how people engage with the linearity and non-linearity of time.”
Gorgeous piece. I'm considering that the relationship to the present is not really a relationship because it is void of cause and effect. (The cause and effect of linear time, or past and future.) It seems relationship, in this case, requires adherence to time. For myself, the past and future are yolked to tension, either positive or negative, unless the present is in awareness, or experience. I may be way off here, floating in my philosophical bubble, far away from reality. :) And I may wake up in the middle of the night with a completely different understanding....
Thanks so much. That is a wonderful take. Causality is indebted to the linearity of time - in fact one cannot exist without the other. Linearity, in my very basic understanding, would imply the consecutive flow of events, one after the other. Maybe the present often feels liberating because it somehow sits outside of any temporal framework? It's interesting because I often wonder if I have ever truly savoured a single present moment for what it is? Perhaps not, because our minds (or at least my mind!) are often inclined to ruminate on the past and anticipate the future even whilst sitting in the present!
I wonder if I've truly savored a single present moment, too! The idea that 'mind' is wild and boundless certainly proves true when observing it within quiet moments. I feel more than I can reason that we are incapable of understanding time as we grasp it, and that an experience of the present is beyond-beyond us, yet within. This topic definitely pushes me against the boundaries of my understanding, which is why I'm excited by it! I promise to stop now LOL
"The world is bruised and bleeding. However, it is important not to succumb to its malevolence at the expense of the understated but unique wonderment that exists in each present moment." 💕
Thanks for reading!