The interesting thing about the present is that everything is here.
There is no past. There is no future. Nothing exists except those things that are here in the present.
The present does represent the culmination of the past and the inception of the future, but it is not those things.
It is only the present. The present is the home for everything.
But consider for a moment, that even in this present we misrepresent it’s content and reality. Perhaps we have been deceived. Perhaps we are deceiving ourselves. Or, at the very least, we lack the information required to fully qualify the present and it’s contents. The fact that everything is here, implies that there is too much here for us to quantify, catalog and pass judgement on.
Yet we continue to try. We are constantly attempting to take inventory of and account for, what we have and what is happening to us. Us as individuals and us as a community.
Look at your own history. 1 year ago. 10 years ago.
What do you remember?
What concerns did you have at the time?
What was happening in the world around you that had your attention?
Did it make a larger impact?
Is there a history book written that even has footnotes about your concerns?
Bear in mind, that as you do this exercise, your memories have already been altered. As time has passed, and as you have read others stories about what was truly important at the time, you have adjusted your memories. You have weighted the ‘important’ memories and key events. Meanwhile the trivia of the moment has passed away.
Remember when you brushed your teeth on a rainy Thursday morning 10 years ago?
Remember when you stubbed your toe on the bed frame as you walked through a dark bedroom?
Remember when the planes crashed into the world trade center?
All of your memories have been prioritized based on your perception of the importance of those events. It is not a wrong thing, or a right thing, it is just a thing. This is something that has happened. Your job is not to change it, more to the point, your job is to be aware of it.
When you look at a history book, at the milestones it covers, it’s intriguing to consider, what was left out?
We alter the present through our perception. We alter the past through our edits. We imagine the future through our fantasy and fears. Is there room in all this for reality? Does there need to be?
When you look at the present, and everything that is happening today, which parts do you think will be remembered? Which parts will be discarded? Odds are that the things we believe are vital, crucial and life changing, will actually be footnotes at best and most likely discarded as unnecessary filler.
Does this mean your concerns are invalid? Does it mean that we are wasting our time? Does this mean we need to shift our focus to something other?
The short answer is, “Yes and no.”
Yes, you are wasting your time. No, you are not wasting your time. You are simply spending your time. We have a time allowance. Each day you spend your allowance. You cannot save up time for a rainy day. You cannot spend time on credit and pay it back later. Time is here and gone. Perhaps instead of worrying about wasting our time you should simply practice awareness of the passage of time.
Your concerns, your perceived world, is valid and correct. But they are also constructs of your perception.
You have pieced together this world based on what you believe is important or based on what you perceive as others saying is important. But in the latter case, you are still piecing the world together based on what you believe is important and flagging “what others say” as being important to you. Your world is constructed in your head.
Since your world is actually a construct in your head, of information you have chosen to piece together, you can chose to piece information together differently and thus actually change your world.
You can see a situation where you were robbed, as a situation where you donated money to someone less fortunate than you.
You can see a situation where you were wronged, as a situation where you served as a tool in a lesson for another person.
Your day to day activity is in fact 99 percent disposable. But disposable is not be be confused with wasted. Your daily actions are more like your diet for your spirit. Just like your physical body needs food, your spiritual body needs metaphorical food. Do you have a healthy spirit diet?
The impact of the caloric content of spiritual food is largely in your perception. Meaning when it comes to spirit, what you believe you are consuming is what you are consuming. Your attitude and your beliefs impact your results. A healthy spirit diet is more about believing than reality.
Two people can have exactly the same job at the same company doing the same work. One of these people can be happy and excited for the work they do, flowing through their work like a ray of sunshine. While their counterpart can loathe the activity and proceed through the day like a dark rain cloud, angry and stormy. They are both performing the same job, consuming the same spirit food, but the person that actually likes their job has a healthier spirit diet.
All this is meant to say, that we will never have total recall. We will never know, in a given moment, everything that is happening in the reality that surrounds us. Our attempts to consume everything, to get the big picture is a futile effort. If we read of all the tragedy that occurred in the world today we will miss out on the triumph. If we read of all the triumphs we miss the tragedy. Any attempt to consume all of both will lead to an oversight in some other department that we forgot existed, because we were so focused on everything in another area. If you rely on a summary of those events, we have to remember those were edited for content and they left our information that they deemed unnecessary filler. Everything we perceive as information is in fact filtered and processed from one reality to another.
When you were a kid did you ever play the game of telephone? You line up about 10 kids and whisper a story to the first kid. Then they whisper the story in the ear of the kid next to them and so on. Then when the story gets to the last child you ask them to tell the story out loud to the whole group. The whole chain of kids look astonished as they say “that’s not what I heard”. Sometimes a kid in the middle will even, just for fun, mess up the story and throw in something they know wasn’t in it. Even this is a great example of reality.
Expand the game of telephone to life. Everyone has filters. Sometimes they are aware of them and altering the story because they have an agenda, sometimes it’s just a misunderstanding when a concept goes through a person that doesn’t understand the idea. The point is, there is no pure information, there is no ultimate source of truth. Life is a giant game of telephone. Even in your head a story is being told and retold over and over again. Altered to fit your beliefs. Filtered to not mess with your reality.
There is no total recall. There is no ultimate truth. There is only this moment and everything in it. Allow the moments to flow through you. Try not to judge, try not to take in too much. Try to keep a good spiritual diet. If you can’t find a way to enjoy the spirity food you area already eating, then change your diet. You can’t take it all in, nor would it be a good idea if you could. You don’t need to take it all in. Everything is perfect.
Namaste,
Kevin
