Have you been thinking more of the past or the future?

Hi “Just Me”, thanks for visiting my response to the question. If I understand you well enough and, in answer to your question, “awe” is a human emotional response to the qualities of some specific space and time and the things and people in it. It can literally be anything, anyone, any place or time I choose to respond with the feeling of “awe”. Where my emotion of “awe” comes from is my human life, my human mind fully alive, aware and passionate and does not exist apart from it. It lasts as long as I’m able and willing to maintain the emotion. Where it goes is into memory in an impure form that, over time, continues to erode until the original emotion remains only a thin shadow of what it was. Happily, we need not lament the passing of one moment’s awe and it advisable not to because this moment’s awe, this here, this now, deserve our full attention and has plenty to induce awe of its own.

I happen to believe that “awe” or the lack of it is a matter of personal choice. One can experience a continuing state of awe if one wants to. It is that simple. If there is no awe in your life, you have neglected to create it. If you believe it to be impossible, you have made it so in your own mind. This means it is my belief that awe is all around us and within us. It is and goes wherever we are and do. This is because “awe” is really the self chosen to be fully aware, fully alive and passionate.

Let me know if there’s something I didn’t address or was unclear and, as always, enduring peace, genuine love, abundant awe and long life.

Naumadd

Hi Schrodinger,

I’m afraid you’ll have to help me out. I’m finding it difficult to understand what you’re getting at precisely so I can give you a proper answer from my own viewpoint. If you’re alluding to some disembodied consciousness that is “longing for friendship”, I’m afraid I find that rather nonsensical. I take “now” as synonymous with “real” and do not presently see how it could be otherwise. If this “consciousness” you speak of isn’t “now”, it doesn’t exist and therefore isn’t “consciousness” and, in any event, can’t be consciousness if it is “disembodied”. Some extraordinary fact and logic would have to accompany such a supposition. So too, would any claim of some presence “outside of time and space”, i.e., “outside of existence”. “Past” isn’t real outside of our current memories and record of it. “Future” isn’t real in that it refers to a state of nature that hasn’t yet been realized and, in any case, whatever “future” we speak of is at best far less than even a mere shadow of what will, in fact, eventually be “now” and therefore real. The past, certainly, WAS real in its time and place, but is not presently “real”. Hopefully, without repeating too much, what isn’t “now” isn’t real and, necessarily, what isn’t “real” isn’t “now”. It can only be memory or fantasy but, in any event, not “real”. I’m liable to hear arguments opposing these conclusions and I welcome them, however, they’d have to be rather powerful in fact and logic to supplant my position.

In any event, I’m still uncertain if I caught your meaning adequately and I’d like to get at the “meat” of your questions. I find these matters fundamentally important and absolutely fascinating to discuss and, of course, I take these types of question very seriously. Neither the asking of them nor our attempts at answers are to be taken lightly.

Hi Nahnni, Thanks for reading this and commenting.

Hopefully, what I’m about to get at here makes some sense. It’s difficult to put into words because it’s a difficult notion to crystallize in thought. I know what you mean about making a single moment seemingly last a thousand years and, when I’m thoughtful enough to slow down and truly focus, that’s always the ideal I’m striving for but, let me offer you this to chew on a bit:

Hi Schrodinger, Sorry it took a while to respond … busy, busy, busy.

Let me just say in short, I think the proper view in our minds ought to be this: “past” and “future” are not real in the sense “now” is real. “Past” once was real, now it is not. “Future” someday will be real, but now it is not. What actually is real are our memories of the past and our imagination regarding the future. Neither past nor future have reality beyond memory and imagination. “Past” is the term we use to refer to an open-ended set of “now” in our memory that once had reality but now does not. So too with the future. “Future” is merely the set of imaginary “now” that has not as yet been real but at some point will. The “whole” you speak of isn’t the “now” plus “past” and “future” but rather the “now” which includes real “now” memories of the past and real “now” imagination regarding possible or likely futures. We speak of it often but, no one “has” a past. What they have are memories of “nows” that are no longer “now”, no longer real. Memory is what exists, not the “past”. No one “has” a future. What they HAVE is an imagination regarding “nows” that may be - most of which will be wrong. We ought to be more precise in our thinking of what is actual and what is the content of memory and imagination. For instance, I have memory of what my face looked like as a child. That face no longer exists, but the “now” memory of it does exist. So too, I imagine myself as a much older man. That older man does not exist, but my “now” imagination of him does exist. Memory and imagination are real, the content of each is not. The content of memory and of imagination are merely the descriptions of each, not things in themselves. This touches on the subject of “spirit” or “soul” which are mere descriptions of workings of the physical body, not things in and of themselves. In other words, you cannot separate “sweet” from the thing or things that ARE “sweet”. “Sweetness” isn’t a thing, it’s a description. It’s the state of an actual thing, not a thing in and of itself. So too with “spirit”, “soul”, “mind”, so too with “past” and “future”. They are descriptions of actual “now” things - body, memory, imagination.

As for “other” and the notion of “connecting with it”, I will say this: seen properly, there is no “other” and there is no “connection”.

Because all of nature, “all that exists” is a complex, dynamic and integrated inseparable indivisible whole, “self” and “other” are actually synonymous and “disconnection” and “division” are impossibilities. It is full awareness that’s needed in life, not “connection”. Seen in the proper light - “religion” or “reconnection” is actually intense self-indulgence. There is and only ever has been the “one” (i.e., “all that exists”) incapable of disconnecting from itself to genuinely become “two” - “self” and “other”. In other words, you and I aren’t simply parts of “all that exists” we ARE “all that exists”. We are not “parts” of nature, we ARE nature. We cannot be separated from nature and therefore, we cannot genuinely be separated from one another. “You” and “I”, are relativities within nature, not “parts”, and thus there is no “we” except as relativities - only “I” is real. If your consciousness is developed enough, “self” is all you see and all you ever will see - even when you call it “other”. If sufficiently aware, you realize that whatever you identify as “other” is intimately connected to “self” thus revealing there to be no actual distinction. It’s not “self” AND “other”, but rather “self” IS “other” IS “self”. The ideas of “disconnection”, “separation” and “other” are false. These only ever have been and only ever will be misunderstandings in a human mind. I do not feel a need to “connect” or “reconnect” because, except in personal misunderstanding, except in an underdeveloped consciousness, I’ve never genuinely been “disconnected”. I do not need to relate to “other” because there is no “other” - there is only myself sufficiently or insufficiently aware of what is true in the fullest sense.

“Self”, seen in this light, takes on incredible implication and such realization ought to severely alter one’s behavior toward what is traditionally termed “others”. What you do to “other”, you do to “self”. What happens to “self”, happens to “other” - because it is all the same. “Empathy” becomes but another word for “fully aware of self”. “Love of other”, fully developed, is actually an intense love of self. “Love of self”, fully mature, is “love of all” or “love of the one”. The need of “religion” falls away to be replaced by a fully-matured self.