"20 years from now you'd give anything to be this exact age, exactly this healthy, in this exact moment. Take a second to enjoy it?" ~ Richard Webster
We give up time to make money so that we can finally have more time when we have enough money. We give up happiness to achieve success so that we can finally enjoy happiness when we achieve enough success.
"However much you feel you need to plan for the future, to anticipate it, to mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. Even when we think we're in the present moment, we're, in very subtle ways, always looking over its shoulder, anticipating what's coming next. We're always solving a problem. And it is possible to simply drop your problem, if only for a moment" — Sam Harris
Many, maybe all, of the things we do, are an attempt to give ourselves a good enough reason to just be here, existing in the present moment. Being choked during sex stops the chatter of our mind, as does drugs, as does alcohol, and fighting, and reading, and dancing on a beach to a DJ as the sun sets.
Our goal as awakened humans should be to lower the required height of the stimulus bar to a level where you can be present without having any of these inputs.
"If you can't be present with a coffee, you won't be present on a yacht."
Think about how many times your presence has been hijacked by fears or worries or hopes for problems of the future, or regrets & victories around problems of the past. As you flee from boredom before it even rears its head with a screen in your pocket.
We are so averse to time without distraction that we've become addicted to solving problems, so much so that our minds create problems purely for the purpose of solving them.
The only thing you have is this moment. Holy fuck man we're alive. How astronomically insane is that.
A random collection of matter coalesced into a form that can contemplate its own existence for 4000 weeks before it vanishes forever.
This is not a dress rehearsal.
Chris Williamson | @chriswillx