Presentness

I’ve found myself thinking about time’s relativity and the idea of relativity in general. When I say this I, of course, am not talking about Einstein's theory, I am speaking in the more general as I often do. What is relative to us? What is dictated purely by our understanding of it or our observing of it? When we look out on the world, we are in one spot, we are observing the world from that point. We can know that other things are happening in other places. We hear about them or read news about them or even see images of what is happening in those places. Yet, we are not able to observe them from a ground zero standpoint. And so, we are left only being able to see our own reality.

If we were on a ship in the middle of the ocean, we could look in every direction and say that the whole world is covered in water. Because, from our vantage point it looks as though it is. Yet, most of us could still hold onto the idea that there is land somewhere out there, even though we are surrounded by water. Our experience of land is what makes us hold onto the idea of returning to land when the ship eventually returns. Our object permanence allows us to know something can still exist without our unbroken line of sight.

We will always come back to our own reality though. No matter the impact of the thing outside ourselves. It is much like driving a car. As we are driving, we can have an interaction with another driver, since it is there, we can feel how present it is in our reality and in our mind. Yet, when we get home, we will more than likely have forgotten the interaction completely because the constant moving of traffic and reality demanded our attention in the here and now.

Reality demands our attention.

There will always be experiences that will make a bigger impact. Ones that will stick with us for our whole lives, good and bad. Somehow those also are eroded by time and the ephemeral state of the human mind. There will be land markers of the event that we can point to; the memories themselves might be easy enough to conjure up. Yet, time still makes them distant. Time moves its hand over our memories, in the same way it does the mountain, and each day the face of them changes.

We are able to travel outside ourselves through thought and outside stimuli, but we will always come home to our own mind. We live in a distraction culture. Our attention is being fought over nearly every minute of every day. This helps remind me to try and keep my home in good order. This, of course, is why so many speak about being present in the moment, because it is now. It is shaping our future. It is ok to worry about the future and think about the past but in the end our current reality is what we have and will always have. It is the only moment that we can live in.