My bubbles of air by riandreu

How often are you fully immersed in the moment?

I mean not mentally wandering off down one mental path after another and winding back around again (maybe), but so involved in what’s happening right this second that you’re not even having to focus or think about having to focus. Because at that moment there are no options; you just simply are … in the moment.

Most of the time I’m involved in activities only partially, to varying degrees.

At the same time I’m experiencing the activity, my mind is working in a bazillion ways about a bazillion other things, related and unrelated. I may be thinking about other related activities or ideas or music or whatever may have grown from or be a reflection of what’s happening: how I could write about (or blog about or tweet about or — gasp! — even tell someone about) what’s happening or how other people would react to the activity were they in my position, for example. Or I may be thinking about all the other things I should/could/must/want-to do instead of said activity. Or I may be bouncing back and forth between or swirling around in a tornado of it all.

The now is usually part of where my head is, but it’s not solely where my head is.

And if you were to ask me exactly where my head was at a given moment, I’d have a hard time giving you a straight, honest answer. Because it’s usually a myriad of thoughts and feelings, much of which I can’t even put my finger on. (“How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?”)

I was reading The Shack earlier this summer, and a lot of it has stuck with me. One idea in particular comes to mind now.

In the book, which has raised a lot of controversy over its theology, the main character, Mack, is talking with Jesus, who is presented as a rugged carpenter in flannel, no less. (Long story!) Jesus tells Mack that humans were designed to live in the present:

“When I dwell with you, I do so in the present. I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine.”

It makes so much sense. Not that God is within our time at all because he’s not, but that our versions of “past” and “future” are really only figments of our imagination. Sure the past happened, but our memories of it aren’t reality.

I don’t know if it’s possible to work on being more in the moment. It seems like trying to do it would defeat the whole purpose of it, huh?

But I don’t want to spend my life vicariously experiencing it, as I’m prone to do, through books, TV, movies, blogs, chats or even my own thoughts and memories.

Visits, yes. But I want to be and experience the now.