It's Today

Through remaining in the present, we can let go of the past and the future - the headquarters of our fears.

Lama tsony
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Hello Frosty
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
It's night now, or it's day, or it's both.
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I enjoy reading history. History is about events. But even more history is about people, people make the events happen. If you read enough history you get the accurate impression that the human race has been at war with itself ever since the first cave man picked up a rock and threw it at someone.

You've heard the axiom "history repeats itself" and you've probably also heard that if people aren't aware of history they are in danger of repeating it. Well they apparently repeat it anyway even if they are aware. It's that repetition of events that makes history interesting to me. It means that history for me is not a linear study.

Read a newspaper, if you can find a newspaper in this E age, and you will find that all the things that have ever gone on are going on right now. The past is just the present with dust on it. And that leads me into considering the present as the only reality, which it is.

Why should we fear the past? Or why should we fear because there is a past? Most of it is a bucket of ashes and what remains should be laughed at. You made some events happen, some of them were successful and some were failures, and that about sums it up. Did you learn something from your mistakes. Good. Then that's what the past is for. Now forget it.

Why should we fear the future, or fear because there is a future? As someone said, the future is much like the present only longer. By an amazing bit of alchemy the present turns into the past just as fast as it turns into the future. And that's what makes the present, today, this hour, so important. If you do it wrong you may have a regret or two, something else to put into the bucket of ashes. But what ever you do, whatever event you make happen, it will define your future. You're making history. And once done it's best to let go of it. When you throw the rock you don't run after it to make sure it hits the target. It hits or it misses. Get on with life.

Another important thing about the present is that you can't measure it the way you can measure the past or plan the future. That's what makes it so vital. It is the only real time there is. Think of the time you've wasted going over the past in your head, your memories and your regrets. or planning or fretting about the future, while all the while this minute is waiting patiently to be turned into thought, feeling and action.

I don't "believe in yesterday." I don't believe "life is what you do while your waiting to die." Scripture says "Now is the day of salvation." Whatever "salvation" means to you, it's right in front of you.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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Future

The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need.

Ann Richards
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Hello George
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"The past id prologue" Shakespeare wrote, it was made up of a whole string of theres and thens,and there isn't much we con do with it but let the present and the future make whatever needed changes there are in it and put the rest in the dust bin.

"The future lies ahead" as the silly saying goes. We can't predict what's going to happen, people say. Who's going to win the election? Which horse is going to win the race? What are tomorrow's winning lottery numbers? If we knew the answer we would not be rich because everyone else would know also and they would close the lottery down. Personally I like Yogi Berra's view "The future ain't what it used to be."

But what about my future and yours? The fact is we have the future right in our hands, right now. Just as the past was made up of theres and thens, the future is made up of heres and nows. Everything we do today is defining the future for us. We are creating the future at this moment. And that's why the present, the here and now, is the only real time there is.

Years ago I saw a film, maybe you saw it, about a man who bought a strange newspaper from a particular news vendor which printed the news for the following day. The man was delighted since he had foreknowledge of everything that was going to happen. Until one day he read in the paper his own obituary. He panicked, and tried everything to stay alive. But it turned out that another man picked his pocket and stole his wallet and then was struck dead in the street by an accident. When the police repotted it to the news they identified the dead man from the name in the wallet And thus the wrong name was printed in the obit. He decided to stop buying that paper.

The moral of the story is to stop believing the dire predictions the world holds out in one form or another as a certain forthcoming event. There's a word I like. It's prolepsis. It means stating something that may happen in the future as if it has already happened. For example, whoever wins the Republican Party nomination will be introduced to the convention as "The next president of the United States." If he wins the election then it was a true statement. If he loses to the current Present it could be true 4 years later. In any case it is a proleptic statement, and the future is not made of predictions. It's made of the here and now.

I hold my future in my hand right now as a bright guiding star which tells me that what I think at this moment will be reflected in the next here and now, and so on through the infinite string of the present, which is the only real time..

Dana Bate - The Vagabond
Never Give Up
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What's on your mind?

The future is much like the present, only longer.

Dan Quisenberry
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Hello George
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Measurements are good for designing clothes, building sheds and figuring how long it will take to drive to Aunt Martha's house. Measurements are very poor and often destructive things when it comes to life. Things take as long as they take. What difference does it make to look back and see how long it took for something to happen. The past isn't important anyway. It's over. It doesn't exist.

If the future is like today then it stands to reason if you want a certain future you should be living it as much as possible today and learning thereby how to live it more. We must make plans for the future, of course, but the best time to begin that improvement program is today, not tomorrow.

I once knew a fellow who at the age of about 30 calculated at what point in his life he would be coming down with certain diseases and infirmaries. He even tried to include me in his calculations as if it was the natural course of everyone's life. I didn't buy it. I saw him years later and it seems he had successfully programmed himself into a walking advertisement for disaster. He was a mess. And he was surprised to see me so sprightly and limber. We were the same age.

It's not a difficult thing to discipline thought. We do it all the time when we need to. It's when we don't seem to need to, when the mind is wandering, day dreaming or generally unoccupied in serious thought that the negatives might start to take over, the fears, worries and depressions. Those are the thoughts that don't belong to us. They come along with the breeze and stick to the fly paper of our minds. Then we have some cleaning up to do. Heaven forbid we should discipline our thoughts to measure how long it will be before we become sick and infirm, like the poor fellow I knew. Whereas if we keep a bright, warm beacon focused on the rights not the wrongs, the hopes not the fears, the desires not the doubts, we eventually bring those realities from today into the future, as we bring the future into today. And it doesn't matter how long it takes.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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The Better Life

Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

William Jennings Bryan
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Hello Frosty
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I spend a lot of space in this journal urging people to use their imagination, to have good realistic dreams and to follow them. Why do I do that? Because the future is life. Imagining and achieving a better future is making a better life. Anyone who is self satisfied is denying themselves a destiny that can outshine any light they may presently be holding up to the world. Why miss the opportunity?

I've shut my eyes and am holding my nose while I keep dunking myself in a baptism of character. I'm cleansing and ridding myself of being defined by my past. I am slowly learning not to regret the things I didn't do or the advantages I didn't have. It's a waste of mental energy and it dirties up the future. I can get angry at my current lack of possibilities but feeling sorry for myself is akin to regretting. It's putting on a dunce cap of negativity.

Here I am, stuck in a dead end, drugged up, wasteland of a place desperately trying to get out and back to New York City, my only real home town. The obstacles to doing that are many and some of them huge. But when I think of what I can do there it sweetens the journey. I can be with other artists. I can learn more about painting, more about theatre. I can be with other, better writers. I can make music.

Achieving the impossible is not impossible once you've achieved it. And you destiny is not written in your past or present. It's written in your thoughts when clearly visualized and lit by the fire of enthusiasm.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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It's Time Again

Your past may be silently holding your future hostage.

Unknown
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Hello Sandy
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I've been thinking and writing lately about the subject of time. Time, like the concepts of up and down, left and right is a strictly human measurement based on a limited sense of existence. In most of the universe there are no lefts and rights, up and downs. And when we talk about stars we talk about how many light years they are away from us, the distance light can travel in one year. And considering the speed of light, those distances are not only inconceivable to most people but it also means that the event we are seeing happened a long time ago. And there's that issue of time again.

What we are viewing is a stars past. Based on accumulated knowledge, an astronomer may be able to predict that stars future. But in fact he will only be predicting it's present, or its recent past. We won't know its future because we don't know its present.

Now what does that say about your life? When you look at it are you looking at your past because the present hasn't caught up with you yet and are you trying to predict your future from that past.? The past is a period of time, light years away from the now. It is useless information for predicting the future. It is best discarded or tucked away for safe keeping and ignored. It may have shaped you into what you are today, but it is a poor measurement for who you will become. That will happen because of who you are and what you do today. It's OK to have happy memories of the past as long as they are kept in their places, gathering dust. Who you are is who you are today and what you think of yourself today and what you think of yourself days, months and light years from now.

There is no time. We live at an instant. We always have and we always will.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Senior Search 10/11/08

The worst thing for a man
is when there is nothing to do,
and no future.

Marat Safin

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Only 75 shopping days left till Christmas!! (I wonder how many people know why I said that.)

If anyone cares to do it, defining one's life can be a tough, brass knuckle thing to do. There was a famous acting teacher of the past who used to say to his class on the first day, "If you want to be an actor you're going to spend the rest of your life looking for work. If you can't deal with that you might as well walk out of here right now."

As I look back on my life I realize that my goals were very simple ones. As a vagabond theatre actor it was usually to get the next job. I didn't think about any long range goals.

Some people work their lives in order to retire. I never planned to retire, but physical problems forced me to, and now I'm faced with the dilemma of identifying myself, my life and my future.

The future comes in two forms: the short term and the long term. For many people the short term future is today. The goal is to get through the day. For others it's to get through the week, to get to the next pension check, to get the Christmas shopping done.

But what about the long term future. So now I'm retired. So What? I don't have to look for a job. What should I do? For many people the goal is retirement, but retirement comes with a problem. This is where the brass knuckles come into play. If your goal in life is to retire and you've achieved it, what's left? Death?

I'm still alive (thank you) and so my life is moving along. But to where is it moving? And why?

To have a future, but to have no idea at all what it is, means there is no goal.

I am grateful that these brass knuckles hit me gently in the jaw because now I am thinking about a goal, goals, a future, a long range future, instead of a colorful but troubled past.

DB - The Vagabond

dbdacoba@aol.com

http://wingstoart.livejournal.com/