Is it the finite nature of our existence that leads to the irresistibly heart-shattering beauty of it all? All the pain and impermanence producing the opportunities for the sweetest visions of peace in this life never not passing us by?

I’ve heard said that we are always living ever so slightly in the past (along with the other kind of deep dive dwelling that I know that I am at the very least capable of divulging in). But the idea is that even in what we perceive as our present, is but the quickest a nervous system can process (which is incredibly fast, well, for some at least). Meaning the moments we experience have already happened by the time we get around to experiencing them.

It’s a bit technical in thinking, but I see plenty of weight to the argument. And us, in all of it, seeking a future while we can’t even manage to ever truly be present.

You’ll have to forgive me as I attempt to get myself together, that Don Quixote habit of mine. There was traffic driving home and I’m rather tired and blah, blah, blah. Excuses, Bruce, give the people what they want. Or even just the person.

Thankfully, perhaps intelligently and certainly honestly, I have never made the claim of being a perfect person. I don’t even go as far as to speak or attempt to think in terms of absolutes. I know that the truth is never static, at least not in its specifics. It evolves and decays, just like all us organic matter that wonders so much about such ideals. And yet, there is the perpetual yearning to grasp it. The truth. An addiction, perhaps, descended from Eve and her husband, if you believe such tales.

Yet as we seek understanding, the polar end of that spectrum, the fear, can so easily arise. That in knowing more, in seeing more, in being more- some essence might be lost. That if all were to stay as is, then everything would be better. That change can only lead to loss. The future only holds demise when you stretch that timeline along far enough.

But I see such stagnation as the precursor to identity rot. And even in entertaining the wish for some golden time now gone to return, I know I betray the very importance in the moments that created such longing in the first place.

It easily gets so paradoxical, but if you’ve been here before, you know that I have no problem with answering a question with several more questions. There are ideological times such as these, that I am grateful for the simple wisdoms that my profession grants me access to. These guys, they’ve got alotta lines. This one seems to hit the state of perpetual fluctuating dissatisfaction so regularly felt.  

The only thing the guys hate more than change, is the way things are.

Grass is greener, etc.

But we are moment worshippers, and story machines, us human beings. All so eager to exchange the mundane for something spectacular that we won’t even know will be worth remembering as it happens. Or when those moments are lost, forever. Not simulation or comparable recreations ever to be had. And I ponder how these moments evolve over time, warped and warmed by the reverie set to replace the initial sensation.

Not all of these moments are of the positive genre. I hold in my own pulsing heart and mind resentment and bitterness. Even if unproud of it, I won’t deny it’s reality. So easily can the worst of the neural concoction I call a self lead me down a road of cyclic atrocious feeling and thought. The spiral downward, so constantly reinforcing itself, page after page. Day after month, after year. Anger is not an unfamiliar idea, often born out of feelings akin to jealousy or indignation. Again, here I stand (or sit, at the moment), the self-proclaimed imperfect being.  

And still, there are those moments that inspire in a way that make some better version of something that was already good to begin with. Pulled or pushed along by the sort of souls that my own finds a sympathy, or empathy, or kinship within, while always respecting the individual of origin. I think of last summer, in times where I could not then predict would be so fulfilling for your humble narrator. A lawn and some beautiful people and some songs. Not too many, that always lends to things getting mucked up. Meaning souls. But just two or three, in particular, even if some of them are to never be seen again. And further still, to my own ancient history. Inspirations that led to dead ends, and destitutions that led to the most elegant and ecstatic new beginnings.

I believe thinking the past as idyllic is just as dangerous as unrelenting optimism for what is yet to come. And I believe that the present, even with the aforementioned nervous system delay, is where this thing we call life is actually happening. Not ignorant of what was and not dismissive of what will be- just being there, as it happens, in the most honest form that one can muster, which is the most honest form there can be.

I think that will do for this evening. I can’t say anything of worth was really brought up, but I feel better for it. And as this is, ultimately, a self-serving activity, I claim the right to call it when I feel the need arises.

I’ll see you next week, if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.