Be Here Now
It's great advice, except it's more difficult these days. Where is “here”? I'm writing in my house, but the audience isn't here. If I switch web sites, jumping to, say midnight.pub, then I'm addressing an entirely different audience, even though I haven't physically moved at all. So being here must mean being present not only in my location but in my action and intention.
Terry Pratchett talked about humans being a diffuse ball of past and present and future, our consciousnesses flitting back and forth all around our current temporal location like electrons in a cloud around a nucleus. The ability to be truly present is rare and powerful.
And increasingly requisite, I think. We often try to take on more of the world than any person can handle. We try to comprehend problems that are larger than ourselves, try to grok the entirety of social and economic systems that have never been larger or more complex, even without any training in sociology or economics. And we fail, and we stress, and we fall down more and more. Panic attacks become more common. At least for me.
So we listen to the old adage. Be Here Now. Tomorrow will come as it always does and we can deal with it then. For now the best I can do is be who I am where I am, and support those who are near me.
I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload. You can join in yourself by visiting 100 Days To Offload.
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