The past and the future do not exist. They are imaginary concepts like unicorns and leprechauns. Try to find the future somewhere right now. There is nothing there outside of your mind. We might have photographs and videos of the past but who can really say when these things occured? What is the only difference between five minutes ago and yesterday and last week? Your perception is the only difference. Time, like space is completely relative. Relative to what?…your perception of it. Without a clock, how long would you say a second is? At best even a scientist could only guess, and that guess would be different every single time. And guess what? Clocks disagree on how long a second is as well. Why do you think they must all be synchronized again and again.
So then, how does one escape the worm holes of past and future to fully experience the current moment exactly as it is? Presence. Presence is the holding of one’s center in the here and now. Presence is completely aware of all aspects of this moment. The heat of the sunlight, the wind on the skin, the sensations of breathing, the grumbling of the tummy; all of these things can only be experienced through an awareness of the present moment. If you do not experience them while they are occurring you will never know they have existed at all. How many times have you been preoccupied by thought on the drive home and had no recollection of how you got there? You were stuck in the past or future and completely missed the present moment. You missed an experience of something real because you were busy entertaining your own fantasies.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this, just as there is nothing inherently wrong with watching TV, but if one were to watch television all day long every day most people would agree that this person hasn’t actually lived. Meanwhile, the television junkie is content to live through the vicarious experience of others while creating no tangible life experiences for themselves.
