April 20, 2007

• A Meditation On Time

  Right now I know this moment exists.  I am here and feeling it, in this room, knowing the whole world is in this precise present moment, all doing different things.  And yet, as time continues, the moment that is so existent to me will soon fade away.  Even as I write, the initial moment of writing this piece is being shoved further and further back into the dark corners of my mind to make room for new moments.  The day’s thoughts, actions, and events have all preceded my exact existence in this moment, which is called the “present.”  And yet, as real as all of that is to me now, time’s steady influx mounts higher and higher until this moment is buried underneath it all and then, astonishingly, I will not remember it.  It will be as though it never even happened.  This day, which I could explain completely should someone ask me about it right now, I will, in a matter of only a few days, forget the small details to, and then perhaps the larger details, until soon all I know is that today was a date in history and I was alive for it.  This is truly remarkable: the very real present will soon become the forgotten past. 

  Juxtaposed moments seem similar, but over a broad gap of time, we become different people, although we were living along a continuous line of successive moments.  Time has tricked us all into changing from what we had forgotten we were into what the present tells us to be.  For the present is all there is.  Yet, would we agree with where the track of time has led us?  Is this the destination we were anticipating?  As we look back from whence we came, has time made us forget one dream too many?  On the infinite track of time, which rolls on without appeal, our lives steadily progress, either consciously or unconsciously, through moments of the wondrous state called life.  As the the track unmercifully thrusts us forward we may kick and scream and beg for it to stop — all in futility.  Demanding that time relent its cruel trick of being an inescapable, unending reality is as pointless as drinking a drink that brings about thirst.  Turning to view the past, I see my life as a massive blank canvas with splotches of paint here or there; but the memories are incomplete and vague.  I certainly cannot recall the way things were to me in the past as I am experiencing them as they are now in the present.  Perhaps a scene flashes from a random summer day, or I remember a certain expression of a face, or the general feeling of a moment, or a hazy picture of a place I have been, but these moments, compared to the entire quanity of time that has composed my life so far, are so insignificant they are but tiny specks in a sea of white oblivion.  I must face it: what life I have had so far is basically gone with the passing wind of time. 

  Time wastes us all away.  That the present is always here, and that we cannot remember things past, is an illusion of our own transcendence, that we will always occupy the space where we currently are.  Wherever I go is where I am, an unescapable self is what I am; I think.  But that one day that that reality will cease to be is the most unthinkable end.  No matter how much time goes by, I am always here.  That is what it is to be in the present.  But that this was really one large scam, one that does not follow the same pattern forever, and that one day the present just stops, is the great trick that time and death play on us.  Does this trick even happen slowly?  Or is it fast?  I arrived here quickly: time must be going fast.  Thirty years old is so far away: time must be going slow.  Oh, Time, how you are the ultimate magician!  Right before our eyes you play your sleight of hand, and no one can understand the trick!  Over and over again we watch in amazement!  Time!  It never stops!  Time is the air of death that we are all breathing in and out unavoidably with every passing second. 

  This very moment will soon be gone forever.  It will not live on; it dies like the rest of them.  Time collects its due from us without our consent from the pockets of our lives.  My life is a infinite refreshment of moments until one day I will lose my moment-experiencing medium.  But what would I have done with the next moment after the moment I die anyway?  Or the next two?  Or another one and another one, until perhaps I had a few more years of them?  Would I be satisfied then?  Alas, it is seen: if I am not satisfied in this moment, I am not satisfied in any of them.  Either the present is mine and I own its deadly glare, or it owns me.  For despair is what it wants of us; but upon viewing its sinister plans and being aware of them, I find a great rising force within me to leave the clock’s bitter stare, and to, as the great apostle said, “make the most of every opportunity.”  Is that not all there is, in the face of such an immovable reality? 

  “Be very careful, then, how you live — not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”  - The Apostle Paul

  Life is in the next thought you have.  It’s in the next conversation you have.  It’s in the next temporary emotion you feel inside you.  It’s in the next moment you slightly shift the view as you see it through your two eyes.  Life saturates every moment. 

  • 12:22 am
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