New Now

I just realized:

Maybe being in the now is not so much about stopping thoughts about the future or past as it is realizing that all of these thoughts are made in the present. I've always had a hard time with the whole "forgetting the past and not thinking about the future" thing. It just doesn't fit right with me. We need to think about the future in order to create and somewhat prepare for potential scenarios in which we may find ourselves. This is not to say that we necessarily do it right. Some of us (like me) tend to create unrealistic, unaccommodating scenarios that actually serve to bind more than free us. These ideas of the future must be based on our present actions and beliefs and they must be eternal concepts. I say eternal concepts to mean that the only things that we can really visualize accurately are the tendencies we have right now that we want to keep forever (for example: a desire to learn, a desire to accept, an acceptance of the imperfections in ourselves and life, and an acceptance that what we visualize may not happen). I feel like those things need to be the main ingredients in our dreams/visualizations and the rest is left up to the creativity of our imagination.

But I digress.

I think that we need to have a healthy outlook and acceptance of our future and past, and then work to recognize that all visualization, memory, dreaming, flashbacks, etc. happen in the present. This way we will be able to correctly accept our past failures and learn from them in order to move into a more liberal future where we are free to exercise judgment which only comes from experience and learning (all past) to make conscious decisions of our ever-expanding options. I feel that we really want freedom as humans; freedom to choose good things. The more I learn, the more I realize that I have choices and options and a less ignorant and more rational mind with which to make good decisions. It is like the adage "the more you know, the more you realize you don't know." one of my own I would like to derive from this: "the more good choices you consciously make, the more conscious you are to the good choices you are free to make." An important aspect is the consciousness. We make many, many choices we are not really aware of. Many are probably best made unconsciously, but I have seen for myself how, as I become more aware of my inner dialogue and beliefs, the more I see how those things can inhibit me as I continue to believe them and remain unconscious of them. It is all a lot of meta talk. Basically a thought really only has power over us when we believe it (and in turn, act and think based upon this belief), but as soon as we recognize that we believe a thought, and simply watch that thought to see if it is true and what it does, much of its power fades. That's not to say it can't come back, but the more you recognize it, the more aware you will be of it when it rears its ugly head again.

Ugh, I think how tired I am from my two tests this week (just finished one 2 hours ago) is bleeding through in this post. Sleep.