Snails

Snails see the benefits, the beauty in every inch – The Format

What does it mean to live in the present? In one sense, it is seemingly trivial – where else would I live? In another sense, it seems patently false – if you don’t plan for the future, things can (and often do) go horribly wrong.

But in any case, the present isn’t always great. “Just being” is wonderful when hip-hop dancing with brothers, but not so much when stuck in front of a classroom of fighting 2nd-graders who don’t understand a word you say.

However, I was reminded today through a song of a particularly explosive relationship (perhaps not the worst metaphor for Peace Corps service, from what I’ve seen and heard). A person I loved, missed, hated and despised. The best times turned into the worst, and the worst into the best – and this strange hall of mirrors goes on with all manner of refraction and distortion.

More than that: the truth of that relationship simply is the myriad reflection. Were those times good? Bad? These questions seem ill-formed. Things happened. Bunches of present moments happened. They had some dominant feeling at their times, but have developed all sorts of complex meanings since, many completely unforeseen and bearing small resemblance to what I felt then. At no point do those meanings become exhausted, whether or not I am conscious of those moments any longer.

I can’t stand certain behaviours in others, I’ve recognized faults in myself which I’ve worked on, I have memories of things to hope for, I have memories of things to avoid. And all of these changes have altered the way I’ve handled other events, which has produced more changes, and so on.

We live in the present because that’s what there is. I’m not saying that maybe I should be optimistic about what I can do here. I’m saying that any given estimation of success is only one dimension of the present amongst many – and that many of the dimensions by which I will measure today have not yet been seen. Whatever happens, I and others will doubtlessly see any number of different facets in the time to come.

So that was a nice after-school meditation to get my mind off my stressors. No matter how much I want to just throw my hands up and storm out, I know that I will look back at things in a year and see them differently – and “differently” is better than “about-to-wring-necks.” Let’s see whether I can maintain it in any number of face-palming episodes tomorrow. But in any case, tomorrow will happen whatever I bring to it.