Time

There are 82 posts tagged Time (this is page 3 of 5).

Inhaling Peace, Exhaling Release

I have what feels like the entire earth to myself, this huge open expanse inviting me to come play, to run, to sprint, to feel the sand between my toes and the warm breeze on my skin. 

But I don't run. I stroll. I feel the lukewarm water lapping gently at my feet and watch as the quiet waves roll in softly and ripple across the infinite sandy expanse.

I close my eyes and inhale deeply, taking into my being the pure energy that surrounds me. It's intoxicating. I cannot breathe deeply enough. It's as if the air itself is so full that my lungs are unable to capture it. My body tingles with overwhelm.

I look up at the stars and exhale a sense of immense gratitude and contentment. If peace itself could be captured in a bottle, this must be what drinking it feels like.

With all the places in the world to visit -- with all the places that my freedom allows me to go -- I suddenly feel no desire to go anywhere, no sense of urgency to see a new place, or to relocate, or to even explore. 

What more do I need? Where else will I go? What more could I possibly ask for in a destination? 

What was it about this beach in Florida? Was there some energy here that my being was connecting with? Or was this experience perhaps more superficial, more related to the warm weather and the never-ending sunshine?

For the past few weeks I have gone for a walk on this beach near Cape Canaveral almost every single day and incredibly this experience has followed me each time. 

I arrive about thirty minutes before sunset and spend two hours or so walking and/or running until the sun goes down and the stars come out. 

Each night before leaving I stand in the ocean and look up at the stars, picking out planets and constellations and watching for satellites and shooting stars. 

With the ocean before me and the stars and planets above, I can feel my infinitesimal size.

Why am I here? What am I doing? What is my purpose for traveling? Why do I need to go anywhere?

I ponder these questions over and over while simultaneously feeling certain that I won't stop asking them, just as I feel certain that I won't stop traveling. (After all, none of us really do stop traveling. We're in constant motion, whether on this planet or through time itself.)

I'm reminded by these experiences that my travels are not a method of 'searching'; I'm not trying to fill a void or figure out what's missing. Everything I need, everything I ever will need, is already here; I'm already complete.

What travel does is help me strip away all the social conditioning, all the preconceived ideas and expectations that I create for myself. It helps me release all the bits and pieces of identity that I, and others, have plastered all over me in attempt to create a definition and a design that can easily be grasped onto. 

Embracing change as a constant requires embracing detachment and movement as constants as well. Letting go is part of moving forward, just as moving forward is inherent in letting go.

Travel helps me rediscover what's already here, what goes with me from place to place, from moment to moment unchanged. Just as the ocean washes away my footprints, so does each moment wash away the previous, leaving behind only what was already here.

Urgency vs. Importance

Urgency creates an attention poverty. It deprives us of the present moment and encourages us to make rash decisions, to act before thinking and to commit before considering. 

Urgency disregards priorities and blatantly ignores what's important. It demands nothing short of immediate, unmindful action.

Things that are urgent are fleeting. They lose their value and their sense of importance with every passing moment and they feel important because they're fleeting.

We buy something because it's on sale or jump into a conversation so that we're heard; we stay on top of what's trending or keep up with our favorite shows, authors, or magazines; we stay with our job because it's a great opportunity or we indulge in the luxuries of life because, hey, life is short.

We chase these things because they're fleeting, because the unstoppable and relentless marching of time ensures that they will be gone, possibly forever, if we don't act now. 

But what's important, what's truly important, remains important. It doesn't fade into the background when we ignore it. It doesn't disappear after a few days, weeks, or years. 

It doesn't matter if we're rich or poor, if we're ten years old or a hundred years old, if it's Monday or Friday or if it's the weekend with a full moon: the important things remain important.

The important things are here to stay. They remain with us, patiently waiting until we're ready to sit quietly, bring our mind home, and give them the attention they deserve.

Urgency will never wait; you'll never catch it. Chasing what's urgent is a fools game. But embracing what's important, that's something that has meaning. That's something that has real value.

The urgent stuff will always be running away from us, but the important stuff -- the stuff that gives our life meaning -- is waiting patiently with open arms.

Ten thousand years from today

The wind blows today as it once did ten thousand years ago, yet we think about today and it feels special, unique, ours. We await the sunset each day with a sense of anticipation, placing importance on this particular day, on this particular cycle of experience, treating this one conscious moment as if it were ours to command, as if the center of the universe existed beneath our feet.

And perhaps it does, but can we imagine for just one moment the absolute insignificance of our existence?

Billions have come. Billions have gone. Billions more, holding just as much sense of self-importance, will come still, and then be forgotten. They will look at the wind just as I, and wonder just as I, and a few, for slightly longer than average, will be remembered, their thoughts re-thought, their words repeated, their actions reexamined; but they too will fade.

All that remains unchanged, untouched by the vastness of time, is change itself, the heartbeat of the universe, pulsating and breathing like giant creature full of stars and galaxies and universes.

And we? We exist in the belly of that beast, a crucial but unaccountable part of a larger organism, one of far greater scale and embodiment than our feeble imaginations are capable of comprehending.

We are like the billions of microbes living within each of us, unheard and unseen, their struggles in our digestive tract, their trials and tribulations, their pains and hard work, their concerns and worries and frustrations, all meaningless when we change the perspective to that which encompasses their existence.

Will our legacy be like theirs, one of symbiosis, one of attempting to coexist in harmony with its host? Will we search for meaning and seek to understand our place in the universe? Or will we quarrel, amongst ourselves and with ourselves, living out our lives unconscious and ungrateful for the crucial role we play in the fabric of the universe?

The pulse of the universe will go on, oblivious to our ballooned sense of superiority, unaffected by the insignificance of all that we consider of utmost importance. Our place will be replaced by others, some of whom will seek harmony, some of whom will ignore it, and yet others who stare at the wind marveling at its transparent embrace, ten thousand years from today.

Notes: Giving Up the False Refuges

I'm tired of taking refuge in all that is false. I'm tired of taking refuge outside of myself.

I pray may this finally become a truth I hold with the deepest clarity: there’s no reliable refuge in this material world of ours nor in all the experiences we chase after with glee.

In drugs, sex, partners, friends, work, money, homes, rock-n-roll, the internet, pluses, likes, tweets or anything else. Even this planet will burn up in a fiery ball. All experiences are as fickle and changeable as the wind. And the material isn't nearly as solid as you may think.

Thoughts and emotions are even worse! They seem so real and alluring, but will lead to nothing but trouble if you don’t let them pass right by. Thoughts and emotions are a big waste of time; better to rest in the essence of mind. Avoid harm, do good, and tame this mind of ours.

Instead of running for refuge from all one's twisted beliefs and stormy emotion, let them rise up and let them dissolve. It’s all just like a film. Momentarily so vivid and real. Till the lights turn up in the movie theater.

When death comes knocking - it could happen at any time - all that has happened will seem no more than a vague dream. Can you even remember what happened just a few hours ago?

This was a thought-provoking and powerful passage from Sandra Pawula's latest letter (subscription required).

Mindfulness Experiments: Discovering the Blanket

I've been exploring mindfulness for the past few weeks and with that I've been making a conscious effort to fully recognize when I'm not present. When I notice that I'm not 'here', I remove myself from whatever is pulling me away from that moment.

A few days ago I noticed that I had become not present after sitting in front of the computer for three hours. To break up what would've been an all-day session, I spontaneously went for a walk in the local state forest.

It's mid-winter here in the northeast Untied States and I was greeted by a thin coat of fresh snow blanketing the forest floor. With a bitter cold breeze blowing at my face and a bird chirping somewhere in the distance, I looked around and noticed something unexpected: I still wasn't present.

As conducive as the forest was to mindfulness, simply being in the forest didn't make me feel present and mindful. 

Then I noticed something else: the cold wasn't the only thing wrapping around me; there was something resisting my desire to fully experience the present. I tried to consciously release it, but it maintained its grip.

After about an hour of walking and releasing thoughts as they arose, I began to feel something else strange. I felt myself 'gaining ground' on the present, somehow 'catching up' to it. 

It was as though the stickiness of modern life was slowly melting away.

What had created this resistance? What had created this strange phenomena?

Was it possible the externalization necessary to interact with people and information in a non-physical space like the Internet had actually pulled me away from the present moment to such a degree that it created a false sense of awareness?

When I began walking in the forest, I thought it would take perhaps a few minutes to feel mindful and present again. It was cold and I hadn't planned on spending much time walking.

It took almost two hours before I began to feel mindful and present. (I spontaneously recorded a short video towards the end of my walk.)

I do not believe in the elimination of technology to solve problems that we ourselves create by misusing technology. (Just as a gun doesn't kill people, technology doesn't make people unmindful; we do that to ourselves.)

Taking a one-month digital sabbatical would only put a bandaid on the problem. I would rather learn how to create harmony in my life by experimenting with new ways of living and interacting with technology.

To begin, I sought out the greatest sources of distraction in my life by asking myself two questions throughout the day:

Where am I and what am I doing?

Is this activity pulling me away from the present moment or returning me to it?

What I learned surprised me: the greatest source of regular distraction from present-minded awareness in my life came from activities related to email.

I spend a lot of time working online and a large amount of my communication with others happens through email. That said, my email is quite manageable. I have a system in place that keeps things organized.

Despite receiving more than a hundred emails a day and writing dozens of replies, I don't feel overwhelmed. Why then, was my email the greatest source of distraction from the present moment?

The answer, I determined, could be found in my relationship to email and in the way that I gave it my attention.

Normally, I would check for new email dozens of times a day and immediately reply to any messages that would take less than two minutes of my time.

I would also check email on my phone dozens of times a day, sometimes replying but usually just scanning their contents and allowing myself to reply later from the computer. (What a waste of time... always reading emails twice!)

What was so important that I needed to check for new email dozens of times a day and read the same email multiple times? What would happen to my daily mindfulness if I reduced that to checking email once a day and reading every email just one time?

Testing a Proactive and Conservative Approach to Email

Here's how I'm going to start experimenting with mindful email:

- I will read and reply to email only once a day, preferably towards the evening so that my vitality and creative energy are available to my other, more present activities like creating, learning, and reflecting. I will not enter the inbox until I'm ready to actually focus on the activity of reading and replying to emails.

- I will keep my email responses short and to the point; I will resist any urge to go into depth in a single email and instead choose depth over time by asking better questions and conversing across multiple replies. The goal isn't to be laconic, but rather pithy and succinct.

- I will use my phone to scan for emergency business-related emails, but I will never open the emails on my phone; I will only use the phone to scan email subjects.

The intention here is to be more deliberate with how I use email as a form of communication, to be proactive and instead of reactive to inbound requests for my attention.

In the few hours since I began this experiment, I've become aware of just how habitual checking email has really become. Any time my focus wandered while writing this Journal, I found myself with the urge to check my inbox or browse a social media site. 

To reshape those habitual patterns, I've started turning my focus away from the computer or simply get up and walk away from my computer for a few minutes.

These mindfulness experiments are not about disconnecting more; I'm not trying to remove myself from technology or go on a 'digital sabbatical'. The goal here is to spend more time connected to the present while simultaneously using the tools provided by technology to grow and live better.

The Wandering Mind and the Wild Horse

What's important? I've been asking myself that a lot lately. What is important to me and what am I doing with it? If being fully invested in present is important to me, where am I right now?

These questions weigh heavily on my mind after an unusually varied week, full of everything from writing, to answering an a high volume of emails, to strolling and running through a state forest, to completing freelance web development projects, to playing with my nephew and helping my brother-in-law fix home wiring issues (and getting electrocuted in the process; there's no room for pride in science).

The question of importance is inevitable when the demand on our attention (whether from others or from ourselves) exceeds what is available to us. But there really are no excuses to misdirected focus. As I wrote in my latest essay, our system of keeping time doesn't determine when we act; we determine when we act.

The concept of time is a subject I could talk about for hours. I could run circles around what it is and what it isn't, why it matters and why it doesn't. But one fact remains: I will die. 

This physical body will eventually break down and stop functioning; it will eventually cease to act as a vehicle for life. My true self may be timeless and limitless, but this physical body definitely has limitations; its lifespan is restricted by the framework we call time.

How we spend our time and energy within those limitations is influenced by what is, or what isn't, important to us. We can take a reactionary approach to life and simply spend our time doing whatever calls our attention, or we can take a proactive approach and decide where that energy will be focused.

In reflecting on this for the past two weeks, I've found myself spending less time paying attention to my phone; less time checking and answering emails; less time on social media; less time worrying about how to respond to this person or that person; less time wondering what's next or where I should focus my energy tomorrow; less time reading; less time writing. 

I find myself spending less time and conserving more.

Things that are not present don't receive as much attention because that attention is being redirected here, where I can be present. Instead of volunteering my time and attention to long elaborate email responses, never-ending to-do lists, phone calls, people, projects, and goals, I find myself reserving that precious commodity for here, right now.

I find myself holding depth in conversation as something worthy of great respect, an outpouring of energy that cannot simply be dumped into every email, comment, and conversation, but rather something that is reserved for special occasions where some passionate voice inside becomes inflamed and pushes that pent up reservoir over the edge.

A few days ago I began my morning playing with my nephew. When I'm visiting my parents I usually play for a minute or two before rushing off to start working on my laptop, catching up with emails, figuring out what project I need to complete for that day, and otherwise "spending my time and energy" doing whatever I think needs to be done.

About two minutes into playing with my nephew, I felt the pull of "this other stuff"; it was stronger than usual. I had stuff to do, things to finish. The morning was already getting late and there was so much to get done.

Instead of giving into this pull, I allowed myself to feel overwhelmed, to "fill up" with this sudden self-imposed surge of demand on my attention; I resisted the urge to get up and go (with lots of help from my 2-year-old nephew).

Instead of getting up and going, I got down on my hands and knees; my nephew climbed on my back. 

Then the reservoir tipped. 

Wrapping his arms around my neck, he tried to stay on my back as I marched around the room like a wild horse. Laugher spilled from the both of us as he repeatedly slipped off and then jumped back on. 

This went on for more than 15 minutes until both of us were exhausted from laugher.

***

There will always be other stuff to do, people to meet, conversations to be had, stuff to learn, places to experience, work to be done.

But there will only be one now. 

We need to be fully invested in that, in the present. Instead of letting it wander aimlessly, we need to bring our mind home.

What's here in this moment is gone in the next and unless we decide to experience life from that perspective, the perspective of the present, we cannot live a whole life.

We can invest in the future and even in the past, but we need to invest that energy carefully and with intent. Unless most of our energy is being invested in the present, where are we really?

I'm going to practice expending less energy in areas where energy easily dissipates. I'm going to practice more proactive conservation and focus, less reactionary and aimless expenditure. More here, less there; more now, less then.

The past and the future do not really exist; what exists is now.

What's real is now

There is a certain freedom that comes with releasing our hold on time. I wrote an essay last night, the annual placebo effect, in response to the huge volume of change I see occurring around me. Not physical change, but a change in perception. There's a shift in attitudes, a sudden change in priorities, and an increasing emphasis on being reflective, grateful, and aware.

But why now? 

The concept of time is something that has fascinated me for most of my life (I've written dozens of essays related to time over the past few years). No matter how deep into the subject I go, I always come back to one thing: now; the present moment. It's the point in time that moves with us. (Or do we move with it?)

In 2006 I wrote an essay called Timeless Living, where I reflected on the possibility that our perception of time may actually affect the speed at which our body experiences time.

As the "new year" approaches, I've been intentionally avoiding the entire concept of "a new year", because really, what makes it "a new year"? I think that term is a bit misleading and perhaps even dangerous. There's nothing extra new about tomorrow. It's another day, just like today and yesterday.

If I held onto this notion that tomorrow holds some special significance, it would change the way I see reality. Incomplete projects, like my Transparency Report which I had hoped to complete before "the end of the year", would suddenly become sources of stress and disappointment.

But more importantly, thinking about tomorrow as holding some special significance would pull me away from now. And really, now is the only thing I actually have. For all I know, something could happen in the next 14 hours that prevents me from even existing in "the new year".

But there's also a danger in entirely releasing the concept of time: It becomes easy to live only for the present moment, disregarding the future as non-existent or unreal. 

The future is real. We may or may not be physically present in that future, but it's still going to exist, with or without us accepting it.

The balance I attempt to strike is between accepting that now is the only moment in time where I can actually affect anything. The future may be unwritten and I may or may not exist within it, but one thing is certain: my actions right now will reverberate in that future.

There's nothing wrong with creating new years resolutions or setting goals; in fact, I'm an advocate for both, but I don't believe we should feel caged or limited by the framework in which we set those intentions. 

Our concept of time shouldn't be limiting, but rather augmenting. We can use time as a motivation for getting things done, but our foundation in reality shouldn't be based in something that's arbitrary. It should be based in something that's real.

What's real is right now.