Buddhism has helped to popularize the very useful idea of living in the here and now. On the surface it sounds like the right idea. The past is sewn up so why spend precious time worrying about that? The future isn't here yet so worrying about that seems unproductive. We can proactively plan for the future but that's different from worrying about things that might never happen.
Sensible advice. Focus on what you can change. Focus on here and now. Right here and right now.
Then I started thinking more deeply about that and came away confused and unsure. It might have been the gin. I can't be sure. This is not a macroeconomics topic but since it seems to be the cornerstone of a major world religion, I had to pursue this topic and enlighten my faithful followers.
I started thinking more deeply about the now part of here and now. What is "now" anyway? The second you can utter the word "now" the now has up and gone. Where did it go? It was here a second ago but now its gone -- only to be replaced by another now. Call that now-2. So upon further thought, I am wondering how useful the idea is. We are supposed to focus on something that you can't really nail down.
Now is here and than wham -- it's gone to be replaced by something else.
How can I focus on that? It's like that rabbit playing in your yard. It was just there a minute ago. Where did it go? How can I focus on that?
It seems to me that anyone sitting legs crossed and contemplating the here and now should be concerned about this. What in the hell are we supposed to be thinking about? One school says to focus on your breathing. Focus on that instead of the job you just lost or your child who just got kicked out of the second grade for pulling Mary Ann's pigtails.
But that is a fool's game. Which breath do you focus on? The current one? Certainly not the past one or a future one. But what is the current breath? Is it the one you just exhaled or the one you are about to inhale. I don't think so. What about the current one? Not really. An instant after you have that breath it is gone and is part of the past. How can you focus on that?
So that's that. I decided to take on an existential* subject today and I have come away with nothing. The here part makes sense to me but the now just makes me wonder if Buddhists have a strange sense of humor and want to torment us Christians and Jews.
So that's it for today. Maybe next week I will return to less existential topics like inflation and gross private domestic investment. Or maybe not. The future is not part of the now and I really shouldn't be fretting about that. I guess I will have to work on it in the now whenever that is.
Have a nice day.
* Existential. I have noticed lately that everyone from Joe Biden to my local grocery clerk uses that word often and with great confidence. Here is the way Webster defines it: a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad. Wow.
Dear LSD. Me tinkz the wird ‘existenial’ has been appropriated and ‘repurposed’ (as with police) to mean a fatal threat to a person, country, entity, etc. as opposed to a philosophical construct dealing with the purpose of life . . . . . e.g. purposeless navel-gaz’n. My navel-gaz’n, however, wuz not purposeless cuz I found previously unnoticed seaweed therein ‘n concluded it weren’t an existential threat. My deep-sea buddy, Hermit de Krab, deftly removed it.
ReplyDeleteBefore I read yer blog, yer title, ‘The Here and Now,’ reminded me of a say’n 60 yerz ago: “If you're not here after what I'm here after you'll be here after I'm gone.” Back to the present . . . . I’m after my second mighty-fine kold-d-d-d-d chardonnay . . . . Cheerz!
Cheers dear Tuna of the sea. Agreed, existential often is found next to the word threat. A Chardonnay seems quite appropriate in your time zone. I'm drinking a LaCroix at the moment.
DeleteLarry ,dear boy,
ReplyDeleteA remarkable discourse albeit under the Affluence of Incohol!
Personally I am of the opinion that Time was invented by a very wise person so that everything didn't happen at once. Imagine for a moment if all the Cable News feeds, eggheads, eggsperts and word salads combined were splattered instantaneously on you sixty inch flat screen for your consumption... I suspect indigestion would overide inspiration...but who am I to judge existentially speaking.
Moving on to navel gazing, which I practiced for a while in the seventies, perfecting the pronounciation of Aooooommmm.... since when, like your good self perhaps, I have acquired something of the shape of the Buddha which has rendered my navel invisible except with the use of mirrors, ... something to reflect on at another time... meanwhile let me remind you of Al Einstein's time delation postulate which suggests that were one able to travel at the speed of light, time would stop and space would shrivel to zero allowing one to be everywhere always!!?
I rest my case
Cheers, from Sanibel, Mike macray
It is always good to hear from you Mr Macray and especially after you have been embibing. Sadly, I have slowed a bit lately and I don't even approach the speed of light and therefore will not experience being everywhere always. Your correspondence, however, is a good substitute and leaves me next to delirious. Give my best to all the Sanibellians. I hope to someday return to that holy spot and regale you withy all the things I no longer remember. Cheers.
DeleteTime? What parts of the past alter the prent and future?
ReplyDeleteAll of them.
Delete