That something in that "nothing" loomed large, and seized your subconscious, and has been working its way up to emerge into conscious thought, like some sort of deep boil underneath your skin?
I was reading about staying in the moment the other day, and I glossed over it. Yeah, yeah, nice, fine. I went on to something more interesting - with movement, with story line, with angst, with color. There was nothing there to THINK about - staying in the moment. It's not a sexy concept. It's dry, and boring. End of idea.
And yet, it wasn't.
Ever since then, I've been realizing, slowly, how deficient I am in this.
Perhaps it's the lefty side of my brain, that is always evaluating, planning, projecting into the future. Setting goals and breaking them down into a hurdles course I see ahead of me. I personally live predominantly in the future, and the present is just the starting block, an instant with the gun as I twitch in anticipation.
And on the other hand, the righty-brain in me spins nostalgic, and tragic, and theatrical, on the past. It replays the past with different filters, ever looking at what was, pondering how I got there, and why I chose that path, how things unrolled. At how I was made, what things happened to me, what experiences I had, such that I am what I am today.
I bring my ponderings up to the present, and as soon as I get here, I re-set back, again, and play it over in a slightly different iteration, and study it, again.
To me, the past and future are full of flavor, texture, and richness. But the present is tediously slow, and one-dimensional. I just never want to dwell in, stay in, the present. I think it's because there's a certain amount of discipline required. It's easy to wax nostalgic in the past, or launch dreams of what if, in the future.
You can work with agility in either, indulging creativity. But the present is what it is, and must be accepted. It's not negotiable. I don't like that, so much. And so I avoid it, I've come to realize.
Now there's a paradox: avoiding the present. The only place and time where you can actually be. LOL.
They talk in the rooms about having a foot in the past and a foot in the future, leaving us to piss on the present. I've heard that many times, and it never resonated with me, that it was my mode. Denial reigns supreme.
It's curious how denial works. We are so comfortable, and blind in it. Like the shock after a trauma, when one feels no pain. And then some day, the bubble pops, and we see things differently, all of a sudden. Like a slap in the face, awakening us. Hellooooooooo, pain. Shit!
I realized that the entire family Thanksgiving dinner, and the surrounding time socializing, I was preoccupied - I know not what with. But I realize that I was not there, at all. I had conversations, yes. But I was off thinking of other things with my Second Me, and somehow meaningless drivel was going back and forth between myself and the other party while I was far away. I didn't care what they were saying. And I don't remember, either. It wasn't registering on my value scale. It was merely noise.
How profoundly ungrateful of me, I have come to realize.
Staying in the moment means you feel the things in that moment, are attentive to them. And I should have felt grateful, for my life, for these people. I should have taken time, and energy, to listen to them, to connect, to enrich, to encourage. Instead, I passed the time, got myself into the future, where I wanted to be. Again, I know not why. Just because it's my habit to gloss over the present, rather than inhabit it.
I'm grateful to have this realization, and need to discuss it with my sponsor. It's not the way to live. It's not the way to treat those around me. It's not how I should allot value.
And now, you're bored, having skimmed through this dry entry, and itching to get onto another blog, where maybe there's some titillating angst. But I'll bet this will surface, later, and you'll find yourself thinking about it, too.
You let me know.
-The Traveler
My thanks to BoyGrowsUp, for getting me to think about it. Unlike yesterday, sometimes I don't mind, when what goes around, comes around.
2 comments:
I found the Buddhist concept of "mindfulness" very helpful as a construct for how to actually accomplish this living in the present. I also try to practice active listening in AA. When my mind wanders, or I find myself rehearshing my share or replaying it in my mind, I try to conciously slap myself out of it and listen. You do get better with PRACTICE, like everything else.
I've also embraced a concept of three-ply time. I see every moment as something that can be anticipated, lived, and remembered, and all of those feeling are experienced in the present moment. The challenge, of course, is to guard against experiencing the anticipation or the memory more intensely than the experience itself, but I try to enjoy all three equally.
But I have to say that I live more in the present that I EVER imagined was even possible. I had to let go of a lot of character defects, like dreadig things I could not change, and obsessing over things that had already happened. Hail the 7th step.
I know that, for me, "mastering the mundane" has been a cornerstone of my recovery. The reasons are various and range from the fact that I become easily bored and thus can stray off into forbidden territory, to the Zen reality that, every moment truly IS precious. There are days when at least once an hour I cease whatever I am doing and for a few moments, I just "exist." Maybe that's what they mean by "meditation lite," but at any rate it gives meaning to my "much ado about nothing" life (which I gladly would choose over the former life of sturm and drang).
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