In the Moment

In my search for meaning I keep coming around to the idea of living in the moment.

There are handy quotes:

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment." Buddha

"Today is life - the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today." Dale Carnegie 

But how does one truly face the present knowing that one day you won't be here.  All my thoughts, my hopes, my being, will be gone.  My atoms will move on, become part of some other organism, or perhaps part of the earth.

I carry a rock from the shore of Lake Superior with me, to and from work, waking and sleeping I have it within reach.  There really isn't anything special about it - most would never look at it twice.  It sat on a shelf for years, but the other week I was drawn to pick it up and hold it.  It fits in the palm of my hand and is made of several types of rock, what I believe was initially sedimentary rock that long ago underwent heat and pressure, receiving intrusions of quartz.  Intrusions speak to me of time.  In an introductory geology class the professor was fond of field trips - we wandered around the county looking at different outcrops, caves, and limestone quarries full of fossils.  Quartz intrusions always drew my eye, "There," my brain would say, "that rock is younger than the other".  My eye would rove outcrops looking for signs of age or indicators of million year old shifts in the Earth.

I thought once that I'd come to terms with death - I later realized it was a view through depression - that death did not scare me because it represented peace.  The reality of life and death snuck up on me the day I picked up that rock and held it.  I was distracted by tv, curled up with a pillow, blanket, and my laptop.  When the tv show ended in the wee hours of the morning, in the dark and the silence with the weight of the stone warmed by body heat resting in my palm, it all came crashing down.  The brevity of life, the seeming lack of meaning.  It was paralyzing.

That rock I carry has and will exist as a whole so much longer than I will.  It has and will interact with so many different beings and elements - in its timescale I am but a blink of an eye.  How then does my life matter?  It is so short and there are so many of us.  Does it truly matter what I do?

I come around to the idea of living in the moment.

The idea of taking advantage of every moment because later they will be gone.  It is difficult for me to do.  It feels like such a weight of responsibility - what if I don't take these moments seriously enough?  What if I waste my moments?

I don't have the answers to life's big questions and I don't know if it matters what I do.  I'm trying to live in the moment - to do the things that make me happy and harm as few people as possible in the process.  I'm not very good at it yet, but maybe with time, and reminders of time, I can get better.