There is some wisdom in the pop-spiritual advice to “be present,” to “be here now.” It’s meant as a corrective against the defiling senselessness of digital life: the flit from one scene to the next with no anchor to any body.
And yet there’s something misguided in it, too, or at least some unfulfilled wish. Because you can’t be fully present without remembrance and expectation, past and future, any more than you can appreciate a wedding without hope or the Grand Canyon with your eyes closed. We are always, irremovably, caught in a web of time and space and context, tied in all directions into the living mystery of all things.
Knowing this and feeling your very own toes on the ground is what it means to be present, and probably the best way to be alive.
