We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand, and melting like a snow flake. Let us use it before it is too late.
Man Ray
Good day special one.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
Shakespeare
If you're like me you spend most of your time planning for or worrying about the future, and remembering or regretting the past. And what does the present consist of. A wee speck of time, an immeasurable fraction of a second. The moment you clicked on this journal is gone, it's part of the past. You will finish reading sometime in the future and then that will be past. Of what use can I make of a snow flake that is melting in my hand? How can we make best use of the now?
The present seems to be so much a product of the past that we dwell on it. It is not as easy to see that the presnt is also so much affected by the future, even though we don't know what that future is, because we dwell on that also. How can we leave both the past and the future behind us and live in the present?
Time is such an arbitrary and vague thing. It's simply a measurement of how long it takes something to move from one place to another in comparison to how long the same journey takes for something else. If we have to be there at 8, then we need to start at 7 because it takes an hour to get there. Will I be able to do everything I need to do and be back in time for dinner? We grow old because time tells us to.
But what if we could do away with time? What if the past and the future could exist in one bundle of the present? What if all life experience could be held in the hand like a snow flake that is not melting? I read where some advanced theoretical Physics is completely doing away with the idea of time as part of its calculations.
This subject interests me. I once wrote a short story about two people together in the same place but at two different times.
The intent of Ray's quote, I think, is to grasp each moment of life as it is and live in it completely on its own terms, and to not let the moment be unfulfilled in our experience of it, to be alert at all times to the life around us and in us on all of its levels, in all of its aspects, with all of its shadings and nuances and to hold on to it "to the last syllable of recorded time."
DB - The Vagabond
May you have a day filled with a grateful heart.
dbdacoba@aol.com
http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/
http://db-vagabondtales.blogspot.com/
http://vagabondjottings.blogspot.com./
6 comments:
To live in the present.
I still love my music, and love to watch CNN, but I find that I'm happiest when it's quiet, and I can listen to the little things around me. Especially when I'm sitting outside and can hear all the sounds of the birds, the rustle of the chipmunk under the leaves, a turkey gobbling back in the woods. When I hear those things, I'm thrilled to be right where I am, at that very moment.
Love, Beth
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once." Albert Einstein
Linda in WA
As interesting quote to take into my day. I wrote it down, I've got a book of quotes that I started way back(in the past) and haven't added much lately, I'm going to revive that habit.
Have a great day!
:) Leigh
Until you gave your impression of the Ray quote, that was what I was going to say. The best way to deal with the past, and to not fret about the future, is to live each and every moment now.
Hey, DB that sounds like an interesting story..two people in the same place but at different times....reminds me of that movie 'Somewhere in Time'...I still listen to the sound track periodically..it two starring people in it that I really liked...the woman was Jane Seymour, I think and the man was Christopher Reeves... :) Maria
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