There goes the present (where? where?)

Our metaphor-prone minds see the past as behind us, the future ahead, and the present where we stand. That's true for most of us. The Aramaya people of the Argentine Andes use a more logically consistent picture, where the past is in front (where they can view it) and the future behind (hidden and unknown).

It's all blatant metaphor, of course. The road behind (or in front, if you're an Aramaya) is just a reasonably well orchestrated skein of convoluted gray matter, a trillion neurons on the surface of our individual occipital lobes, happily (I trust) giving the illusion of a "real" past. We can get some clue to the shadowy nature of what has happened or what we imagine will happen when we notice how similar are thoughts of past and thoughts of future (I missed this obviousness for years). For instance, if you’ve recently driven home from the office, visualize a part of your drive, perhaps through a particular intersection. Now imagine how that part of your trip will look tomorrow as you head home--not much difference, is there?

And of course, the past doesn't remain just the past, we can't just remember what actually happened: we embellish, we play what-if games (coulda--shoulda--woulda). The past, let's face it, is mushy. Just like the future.

And, for me anyway, most of what goes on--most of the time--mushy what masquerades as the present. I think of it as the conceptualized present: my experience from half a second ago, processed and filtered by my memory, judgment, shame, guilt, hope, anticipation, desire. The Sufis talk about experiencing everything through veils. George Gurdjieff put it in terms of being asleep to what’s actually going on. The instant the shape in the sky becomes a bird becomes a red-tailed hawk becomes an image of beauty, my pure experience (whatever that is) has given way to conceptualized experience.

I confuse this sort of low-key, edited awareness with reality.

The Hindis call reality tat tvam asi, just this, no more. There's literally nothing to say about it, because once I do, I'm conceptualizing, and there goes experiencing. Sometimes it seems like I'm sitting in a movie theater, lost in the plot. “The End” goes up, the lights come on, and suddenly the reality of the seat, people getting up, the inside of the theater, seem so much more intense than the movie, however gripping. No question, one is pretend, the other is real.

Waking up from a dream has the same this is real, that was a dream obviousness. Despite the Confucian Huang Chu’s astonishing comment that he can’t be sure whether he’s a man dreaming he’s a butterfly or butterfly dreaming he's a man. If the latter, that would have been one smart butterfly.