Recently I've been thinking about models of life, and thinking about the tension between life as existing, mindfully and with attention, in the "now", and life as a linear journey or path, as depicted by the labyrinth.
Then, a few years ago, I was very much absorbed in the notion of Story, of Personal Story, of the mental act of shaping one's life into a narrative.
Which is the best model of life - a point, a line, or a Story?
Thinking more about time, I now think the different models each fit a different segment.
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| The Now |
The present, the "now", the universal context, the collection of sensations - sight, sound, smell, taste, feeling - the only time on which one can act, the only time in which one can act, can actively live. This is like a point, or a single environment or totality. A "you" built of sensations, in context of a universe as it is, in one moment of time, of history. The practices that bring you in aware contact with this real moment as it exists are things like meditation, relaxation practices, massage, Deep Listening, mindful eating, slow walking, labyrinth walking, deep breathing exercises. These are beautiful practices that can leave you feeling clean, bright, centered, whole, with senses heightened, with a feeling of love and appreciation for the universe and all in it. Those are all great things.
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| The Past |
But there is also the past. Existentialist-like, you have lived a series of moments already, up to this point, a string of choices and actions that chain together, like a chain, like a necklace, like a sidewalk, like road, like the turns of the labyrinth behind you. These are real. There are facts of the matter about these. You can't change them, but you can remember them. Memories are the only source of immortality - if you/your actions/your works/your creations live on in the memories of other people. That's real. That's bigger than you, bigger than your life. Existentialist-like, the meaning of your particular life gets constituted by these, moment by moment but wholly when you cease living/acting/making choices. The line, the path, the road behind you, the distance you've come are good images for time past.
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| The Future |
The future, the moments ahead, are not yet actual. No facts of the matter pertain to those moments yet. There's a road - is there a road? There is a road sign. We have reasons to believe that time will continue to move forward, linearly, at a speed of one second per second as it were. (We don't know for sure that it will, do we, Mr. Hume? But we have good reason to believe.) We can imagine the future, though. The near future will be made out of very much of the fabric of the present moment. We can't stop it, either. We know there are choices and actions out there to make, but we know also that there are forces and circumstances that will impinge upon us in a way that we don't choose, that we can't control. We can't know. We can't know for certain what will happen because knowledge requires fact, but we can believe. We can imagine. We can hold some things fixed and other things mutable, and we can run the equations and we can imagine futures. Future time is the subject of Story.
So, there's no reason to argue among the models. Argument probably emerges when someone tries to apply one posture to an inappropriate segment of Time. If you live your present like a line, in memory, like the model of Inauthenticity that Sartre describes, acting bound by some past definition of yourself, you are missing out on the sensations and experiences (and opportunities to act and create yourself) of the current moment. If you decide you're going to live wholly immersed in the present mindful moment, you will never get anything done. One model does not fit all. All have their role.
And, like a labyrinth, all lives have all three types of Time. We live as creatures of time, stationed in the now, looking backward, moving forward, one second per second.
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