There is no future. The very concept is an illusion, caused by our busy minds. There is no past, for the same reason. The only thing that really exists in the entire universe is Now. This very moment. Just me and my relationship to the present.
I’ve been trying to understand this for a few months now, and I was just not getting it. I was overthinking it. That was exactly the wrong way to go about it. I needed to stop thinking and just be in the moment.
It happened on the way into work this morning. I was thinking about the people I was just talking to, my day ahead, my week ahead, what happened last week, what happened… Stop. I’m walking in the rain. The air smells good. I’m here. I’m smack dab in the middle of Now.
And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Utter, pure, unadulterated, profound joy. A happiness like I’ve never felt before. I’m truly an atheist, but this is that deep connection to God that everyone’s always going on about. It’s not about ten commandments, it’s not about hating thy gay neighbor, and it’s not about running planes into buildings. It’s about connecting to the present.
OK, that probably came off wrong. I’ve had similar ideas, as have others. You might want to read Watchmen by Alan Moore, specifically for the character of Dr. Manhattan. (Well, you almost certainly want to read Watchmen because it’s a damn good novel, but Dr. Manhattan is a reason relevant to this discussion.) He views the Universe as a single crystal with no time as we know it. His view of the Universe is thematic more than chronological. It raises interesting thoughts about free will, to say the least.
But if there’s no future, I can’t be happy that I’m going to Vienna tomorrow with good friends and we’re going to have a blast and eat and drink until we can’t move.
It’s important, because if ‘now’ is a dimensionless point, how can anything happen at all - no duration=no time for anything to occur. Whereas if it has a fixed duration, where do things go when they fall off the end?
Now is where you are at this very moment. A minute from now is in the future, but in a minute it will still be now. In an hour it will still be now, just a different now.
