Into the Rare

We say that if we don’t do A, then B will happen.

That is a mindset, a very powerful mindset conditioned on the notion that what is here now isn’t here yet.

Operative word here being “conditioned.”

So we hear and even say ourselves … “oh, if we don’t fix healthcare legislation before it is passed into law, our brothers and sisters will suffer.”

When the reality is that our brothers and sisters are suffering right now, not in some hazy future time.

Now making the transition to present tense can often cause extreme grumpiness, so I will just make note of that for informational purposes.

A thought experiment:

Imagine after reading what I wrote above, you’re thinking with such pain and suffering about your brothers and sisters who are suffering.  You know what I mean, I don’t need to draw a diagram.  The most angry I’ve seen any of us here usually had to do with expressing the suffering of compassion.

Now please let go of that feeling, take your time, no hurry, give it a drink and a snack before you usher it out of the door, whatever floats your boat.

And then imagine right now someone is feeling exactly that way ….

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about you

Now let’s say you have a job and a home and are in no immediate danger from the hard times that are now here.  So why would someone, maybe even someone who has already fallen prey to this danger and is living it, feel that way about you?

And also bring to mind a time you have felt compassion towards someone who appeared “better off” than you.

Ok, that’s the end of the thought experiment.

Living in the present tense is, of course, the teaching of so many religions and traditions, from philosophical to artistic.

I believe we now are shaping the act of staying in the present tense when it comes to politics.

This is no mean feat.  The technology alone that conditions us is so powerful as to beggar description.  To use the word “distraction” is laughably quaint.

We have the power.

We are the power.

We are already doing it.

And we fly into the rare, and have a moment or a minute of apprehending the present, to say instead of “I will” … “I am.”