Reflection in the Now
Do you ever notice that when we look back at our lives, it seems like things were meant to happen the way they did? I find this interesting because in the moment, it doesn’t quite feel that way.
In the moment, there is the presence of whatever sensation we are currently feeling—joy, pain, sadness, euphoria, and everything in between. The reality we are experiencing is utterly vivid—literally happening in front of our eyes, or rather, that we are happening inside it—that even grasping the idea of destiny and extracting meaning from it almost robs it of its preciousness. It’s hard to reflect on something that is currently transpiring after all.
But what if that is the challenge? What if that is precisely the thing that liberates us from being too attached to what we thought ought to happen? What if we can re-program reflection not to be about analyzing the past? What if we can reconfigure reflection as living in a way that can zoom all the way in to our deepest sensations in the present but also zoom all the way out to the point that whatever significance we have attached to it vanishes in the distance?
In this way, we are truly reflecting the opposite sides of an experience. One that is full of meaning and emotion and one that is just another speck of dust in eternity.
This may feel like we are stripping our lives as we currently know it of its very essence. As if we are making our subjective realities less meaningful. That we are discounting the things we feel and labeling them as unimportant.
I think the opposite. In a way, our very realities become more robust: instead of seeing it from our singular point of view—which by the way is full of personal biases, revisions, and stories we attached it with—we can pull it back into this grand chain of events that are unfolding simultaneously, but also, connected to everything else that has ever happened before, everything else that is currently happening, and everything else that is yet to happen.
Because each of our realities is not the most important thing any longer, it melts into everything else, sinks into the grand pool of time, and swirls into the ever-flowing river of eternity. All of a sudden, what is happening to each of us loses whatever importance we have attached to it, but also paradoxically gains importance because we realize it is not disconnected from everything else, and not just a part of everything else, but that it is everything else.
Nothing is singular. Nothing is detached. Nothing is alone.
We are merely reflecting what already is. And we are participants passing the baton in this dance known as the continuation of energy.
Everything else is just details.
July 30, 2023