the Mind and its perception of time

Notice where ever you go, whatever you do, you are always here, right now. Always living in the present. 

If you can touch it you're in it. If you're in it, you can affect it. 

Every instant of change is no longer in the present. But as the mind watches from the present, the observations are preserved in the mind as memories. Different minds have different capacities to interpret and retain what it sees. The mind always exists only in the present but it doesn't perceive itself as so. It perceives itself as existing in a continuum. 

As each individual watches movements, it organizes what it sees into a linear sequence and creates a narrative. 

The mind expects the future to follow a similar linear unfolding as it recalls its memories of the past and interacts with the present.

But as the present is occuring, the linear sequence is broken the moment the motion of one human redirects the motion of another. Expectation of how the future rolls out can easily be upset.

For example, I can make plans to go out to dinner with you tomorrow. We pick a restaurant and a time. If all goes according to plan the future rolls out in a predictable sequence and my mind is satisfied with the concept of linear time. However, if someone crashes into my car on my way to the restaurant, I'm out of commission for the rest of the evening and the sequence is broken. What happens next is reset. A new sequence starts again from the beginning. Right now.

As we attempt to carry out a plan for the future, which is no more than another rearrangement of now, it helps to be aware of how motion affects motion and who else has hands on the potential redirect. 

Inanimate objects follow the strict laws of physics. The earth rotates on its axis, with regular cycles, giving us days and nights. This adds to the illusion that time is linear. 

As you plan for the future, it helps to be aware of the differences between moving inanimate objects, which obey the laws of physics, and interactions with other people, which move according to the willed notions of each person's individual mind. And remember, all rearranging is only occurring in the present. There is plenty of opportunity for another person to redirect the farther away from now you attempt to imagine.

If you plan to build a house, you collect the materials and construct. This will be successful.

But people, affecting motion, will be as unpredictable as the mind is complex. People have different motivations, different skills, different lived experience, different influences, different desires, different needs, different loyalties, ... etc. 

If you try to create a culture or an environment that looks like your own, the actions you take will inevitably be redirected by someone with other ideas. The plans inevitably fail. Chaos and destruction usually follow in its path. 

There is wisdom in the phrase 'Live and let live'.

The expectation that the future rolls out according to some collective plan is not going to happen. 

Every mind adapts to the situations it finds itself in right now. The human spirit is indomitable. It reaches for freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Oppression is always met with resistance. 

The mind is one of the greater mysteries of our times. We are obviously here. There's no disputing this fact. We live in this moving environment. We contribute to the motion. We invent, we create, we build, we interact ... We love, we dream, we aspire ...

But the mind is complex beyond our conscious awareness. Our waking mind knows little about what operates under the surface, what seeps up from the hinder regions of the unconscious mind to influence. 

Every mind is different. Each has a different lived experience and each has different sources of influence. There are friends, family, media channels, information sources, news channels, cultural influences ... And each mind has different levels of capacity for retention. Memories can be fickle. They can be fuzzy. They can be altered. They can be short, they can fade, be gone ... 

And add to that, each mind has a different agenda. For some life is a game, the win is the goal. For some it's fame and/or fortune. For some it's validation. For others to prove a point. For some, a pursuit of passion. For some a mission of vengeance. For others it's a pursuit of knowledge ... and on, and on, and on ... 

The mind can be very creative. Narratives can be invented, twisted, spun, tweaked, changed to serve a purpose, to aid an agenda ... 

So ... Realizing the reality of time, that only now exists, changes the age old view that time is moving forward ... that there may be a rainbow out there somewhere in the future, a better world as the result of actions taken now. 

The reality of the situation is there are 8.3 billion individual minds interacting with 'right now'. Each individual mind has its own agenda, its own ambitions, and each mind carries its own narrative.  Each mind also has it's own capacity to be persuaded or to persuade. There is an age old sentiment "He who controls the narrative controls the stage". 

People come to power, and through a narrative are able to persuade others to follow. A narrative gets projected onto the world, and followers take action accordingly. The leaders who come to power only maintain that power if they have enablers. 

Leaders have the power to affect other people's lives. They can make the individual's journey easier or more difficult.  

The leaders will each have a different agenda. Some are self serving, some are not. Power changes hands often. Minds change often. People entertain different narratives. 

We imagine there is a grand 'They' out there in the world. In reality there are only individuals moving according to the whims in their mind. The narratives live in the wind, and in the individual minds of those that accept them. 

Every mind has the ability to exercise its own will. Every mind has the ability to make decerned decisions about its next move. Every mind has the ability to decide the merit of someone else's narrative. Every mind has the ability to make the choice to become a leader or a follower. Every mind has the ability to make a better life or contribute to a better world. 

Or a mind can take another road ... It may choose to follow a path of comfort even if it is obviously at the expense of others. 

If your narrative contains negatives ... fear, anger, hatred, spite, revenge, greed ... your narrative leads you astray, away from that yet to be discovered hidden potential of that magnificent gift of creation bestowed on every living soul at birth ... The human mind. 

Each individual in power is playing out their own soul journey from their own personal perspective.

When a dark mind comes to power, people under the leader's rule suffer. Dark minds have learned how to grab power so they are likely to achieve followers in each incarnation. Dark minds recycle until they tire of the universal burn. 

We imagine we are watching progressions in history. As the many follow the few, it leaves the illusion we are watching the willed sentiment of the times. The followers are generalized and immortalized in our books of history. When a new leader comes to power, and redirects, we imagine we are watching time progressing.

In reality, as we watch accounts of history, we are witnessing the aftermath of decisions made by a small number of people who have learned how to gain power. 

We look at World War II, and attribute it to 'the Germans'. In actuality we are looking at Hitler's willed decisions and a handful of his inner circle directing followers. The likes of the mind of Hitler can pop up at any moment, in any place, in any era, at any time. 

The individual minds that lived in Germany in the early 1940's, Hitler's followers, are not the same individual minds living in Germany today. 

Generalizations of the activities of a group, assigned to an individual that resembles the group, are dangerous illusions. This happens all the time with the demonization of others, and is a popular tool to instill fear and gain followers. Don't be fooled by the illusion. 

When we look back at the history of our world, we see how much blood has been shed over the ambitions and clashing ideas of a few people who have come to power and imagine building a world in the image of their own beliefs, or creating a world to serve their own individual needs.

We decide who we choose to follow. 

The profound realization that comes with understanding the reality of time, is that for each individual, 'now' is the beginning of any sequence you choose to be a part of. What you do next. Who you follow. Who you do not. You are the beneficiary of your actions. 

Every individual mind, every player with the ability to move, to rearrange the present, is different and on a different journey. This is true for each and every one of us living here on Earth today. 

We land here on the earth, not by our choice, but as a remarkable addition to the creation we observe around us. We are gifted a mind, an instrument so complex we fail to realize its potential. 

Each and every one of us starts this journey in life anew at birth. Each of us is endowed with the magnificent gift of a mind to do with as we will. To discover its hidden gems or to let it lie dormant swayed by the winds of the times.