So, now I'm on the money. If I can crack this I can crack anything. It's a cold winter's night here, and right now it's peaceful and quiet. I've just returned from a bus ride home after having dinner with my youngest son and his mum.
All the way home I couldn't help thinking of an earlier post where I'd inadvertently written pantechnicon instead of panopticon. Well, it's all Greek to me. I must have got Anthony Giddens' 'Juggernaut of Modernity' confused with Michel Foucault's guard towers that keep watch over an imprisoned populace. A simple error really, if one considers that I'm writing these reflections off the top of my head.
But that was all before. Now I'm here at home out of the cold. As soon as I enetered my tiny bungalow, I turned on the heater and sat down and checked my Facebook accounts. Nothing of interest. And now I'm here typing away to an unknown audience who is perhaps going to read this at some time in the future. Already I'm finding it quite difficult to tell you exactly what is happening right now.
First of all, my bum is sore already. I do not have my glasses on and so am struggling to read what I write as I write it. My shoulders are soreish and I notice that I feel a little sad right this very minute. Ernst Tölle would no doubt be proud of me. I'm not sure exactly what he'd be proud of as I haven't read any of his books on the subject apart from the titles. In any case, all this information is always already there in the here and now to the extent that I am recalling this passed memory into the present moment as I type.
Theodor Adorno would also be proud of me being proud of him as I think I have used one of his terms when in fact I'm not quite sure whether I have or not. Now, the above terms are no doubt contributing to the nodal complexity that this post will make to the web. I haven't posted it yet, but nevertheless feel that perhaps it will one day be read and just maybe spread through a variety of nodal points on its way to being read. I think that this post my be rapidly moving to prove Karl Marx's point that philosophy is indeed an impoverished form of communication.
Reflective philosophy certainly is to the extent that all I am in fact doing while reflecting is just looking back into what has already been out there. I am leaving the now to reflect on what has been so that what has been becomes present again albeit in a different form. I try to think of what might have been or imagine what might be. It is a romantic and idealistic notion in the worst possible way, and usually ends in either resentment for past failings attributed to another person, place or thing, or conversely fear of the future. Alternatively I may either sentimentalize the past or in dreaming idealize the future. Whatever, reflection is an impulse away from the world, turning my back on it to wallow in my revenge on reality as I escape from it, whether it be of a positive or negative emotion deriving either my from recall or imagination.
I can't get out of this trap. Reflecting on the here and now can only occur if I first escape from it. If I truly want to live in it then all I need to do is to read the title of Tölle's book and then to live as if by example. As soon as I read what was written I'd be escaping from my here and now into that of the author's which was probably written to the future in any case as the author projected imaginatively into the hard nosed realm of making a profit from his book, of satisfying the editorial staff, and of the well earned holiday he would reward himself and his family with when he had finished his labour.
Oh well. Perhaps I've just punctured another hot air balloon. I always was the clumsy type. The problem seems to me quite complex, but the solution rather simple: Live each day as a self-contained unit, refusing to think about anything that happened the previous day or that will possibly occur tomorrow. I certainly would need to avoid either regretting or glorifying the past nor to worry about or fret about the future. As a rather philosophical old boss of mine once said to me, 'Don't worry Peter, it might never happen.'
Anyday I like, I can choose to live in the problem or live in the solution. The solution is acceptance of what I cannot change about the present moment, coupled with the courage to change what I can. The only thing I need to work out is what can and cannot be changed. I cannot change the past and the future has not yet arrived.
Perhaps the solution then is to just enjoy each moment to the best of my ability and to share this with someone else so that just perhaps there will be someone else out there who is able to share this path of acceptance and joyful participation in the present.
Who knows, writing this was fun so perhaps reading it can be as well.
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