Current needs divert me from a path to future goals. I can't live in the future; I can only live in today. I can't eat the bread off my plate in ten years to keep me alive today. I need something now in order to keep going.
One day I will make it. One day I will make it. But first, I need to make it today.
(Right, so focus on the things in front of you, so later you can do the things you want.)
No, you do not understand. I need to make it today. Not those things you're thinking of, they are not what keep me going. I need to have something now, to make it to tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn't cut it. Tomorrow doesn't exist.
I need a little bit today. A little bit the next day. A little bit more and the hope of a little bit more.
There is no cessation possible. Life does not halt until there is breath, a pulse, an impulse of thought to sustain it. The lungs must breathe, the heart must beat, the brain must conduct or life will cease. Action is living and purpose is life. We can only go without for so long before we can go no further.
It's difficult to live in tomorrow. I can barely hope to know how I will feel in 5 minutes - with or without a purposed direction, action or incident as a catalyst. I can predict that I will be busy with something that only matters to me - and it makes me wonder how selfish is my life or... how oblivious am I to what my influences should be. It is likely I will get a phone call that will change the direction of my week to come. I can estimate that there will be things shifting my mood to places I lack coping mechanisms for.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is why I drink. I don't know what "I" will do, but I know what the booze will do.
And that kind of thinking makes me live in the present. It also makes me incapable of finding any road to head towards when "now" isn't now anymore.
Sometimes my being attached to the present is a way of absolving myself of responsibility for what will happen later.
As a kid, I would sit in my parents car on long trips and daydream out the window. All the times waiting and riding along was boring, but someone else was deciding what happened next and the only decision I needed to make was whether I liked it or not. And if I didn't like it, I could find something else to think about or do my own thing while my Dad was driving us forward. Then after I started making my own choices, I realized I no longer used my time to daydream. I became the one in charge. I was either doing one thing or another. Either I went where I needed to go, or I didn't. There was no more in-between time when I went along with my parents to do what they needed to do. I missed it, because that time allowed me to daydream. I don't want to be in charge over everything in my life all time, maybe it's too much responsibility for me.
Delete"I missed it, because that time allowed me to daydream. I don't want to be in charge over everything in my life all time, maybe it's too much responsibility for me."
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Me too. I wonder if it is for this reason we feel the urge to pair up, find a partner, a spouse, an adopted sibling...
we'd like to let go of the wheel for once rest assured someone's got it for awhile.
Yea. We need someone else to hold on when we let go. It's depleting to feel like nothing happens the moment I don't take action. I want some response from my actions that keeps going. Like if I vibrate a string, it will keep sounding for a while after I release it. Or a spinning top that won't fall over the instant I let go. A bicycle that coasts when I stop pedaling for a bit to breathe in the breeze. A partner on a see-saw.
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