One thing that people tend to realize is that they wasted a lot of time when life seemed normal. It's not about what they did with their time, it's just that they cared about the wrong things. They regret that their attention was wrapped up in petty distractions, year after year.
We all know this is coming. We all know that there is going to come a day when you'll be sick, or someone close to you dies, and you'll look back on the kinds of things that captured your attention.
It is always now. No matter how much you feel like need to plan for the future or mitigate risks, the reality of your life is now. Our conscious awareness in some sense is already a memory. But in a matter of conscious experience, the reality of your life is always now. The past is a memory that's a thought arising in the present. The future is merely anticipated and is another thought arising now.
All we truly have is this moment, and we spend most of your lives forgetting this truth, fleeing it or overlooking it, and the horror is that we succeed. We are never able to connect to the present moment and find fulfillment there, because we are continually hoping to become happy in the future, and the future never arrives. Even when we think we're in the present moment, we are in very subtle ways looking over its shoulder aniticpating what's coming next, always problem solving. It's possible to simply drop your problems if only for a moment, and enjoy whatever is true in your life in the present. There are more connections within a cubic inch of our brains that stars in our galaxy, and yet our inner experience offers us absolutely no clue. We are subjectedly unaware of most of what our minds are doing, and yet when we think about what matters, what matters is consciousness in it's contents. Consciousness is everything. Our experience of the world, of those we care about, is a matter of consciousness in it's contents. The most important question for us is how can we truly be fulfilled in this life? How can we create lives that are truly worth living?
The frame we put around the present moment is important and largely determines our experience of it, but it seems possible in fact that we can experience life without an obvious frame. To pay attention to the present closely enough that you're not doing anything to it. Whatever you can possibly notice, in your head, your mind, in the world, there is only one place is can appear, and that's in your conscious experience.
I'm not saying that all we are is a dream, but it's like a dream in a neurological matter. It is a dream that is restrained by inputs from the external world, and the dreams we have at night are not constrained by the external world. Your mind is all you have, it's all you have to offer other people. We are all trying to find a path back to the present moment and good enough reasoning to just be happier. If you're constantly looming about what you just did or what you could have done or what you would have done if only you had the chance, you will miss your life. You'll fail to connect with it. You'll fail to connect with other people, being the mere hostage of the next thought that races into consciousness isn't useful to you.
So, if there is an antidote for the fear of death, or the experience of loss, it's compatible with reason, and I think it's to be found here. The purpose of life is pretty obvious. Why do we create culture and form relationships, if all that matters is mere survival? We are constantly trying to create and repair a world that our minds want to be in.
. Spot on assessment
