The Present Moment or the Now

Individuals who write about the present moment emphasize that nothing ever happens in the future or the past; it happens in the now. Sometimes this is demonstrated by a click of the fingers to establish being present in the moment. I am moved to ask, What if you click your fingers a second time? The first click, which can only be remembered or recorded in some way, is in the past. Thus, the moment is juxtaposed with the past. Our experience is of the continuity of past, present, and future.

However, once our experience of the now has passed, we can never recall it in the same form with all its nature, texture, color, nuance, beauty, or plainness. As humans, we have the capacity to remember the emotional past in the form of memories we store in our nervous systems, in our musculature, or in our bodily tissues (such as the fascia). We can recall images or memories of past events either consciously or unconsciously.

Alternatives may present themselves in which we get to experience the results of passing moments from years, millennia, or light-years into the past. Recalling personal memories, examining the rings of the cross-section of a tree, observing the depths and layers of sandstone in the Grand Canyon, and viewing the signals and photos obtained from distant galaxies using the Hubble telescope are all observations we do in the now to observe history in its various forms. What is important about our ability to do this? For sure, it makes life more interesting. The variety of experiences that can be explored is extensive. For some, it is a source of awe and curiosity.

There is one overarching truth about experiencing the future, the now, and the past. Life is process. In fact, existence is process. The process consists of future becoming present, the present becoming past. This process is pervasive.

So what can be surmised? Why is this process so pervasive? The presence of process means that change is occurring in a myriad of ways. We now have understood a central fact of existence. Change is occurring in a variety of ways, paces, and rates. It may be at a daily or seasonal pace, and it occurs at different types of time intervals, from nanoseconds to light-years. Farmers are astute observers of change. Millions of wage or salaried workers commute to and from work in regular, twice-daily intervals. Seasonally, road workers prepare their equipment and clean up snow, and as the season passes, they tear the equipment down. The moon goes through its regular and predictable cycle, from showing a sliver of visibility to becoming full. The sun rises daily, providing different hours of daylight to different parts of the globe. A habitual pattern of mealtimes is, for some, three per day. Sleep time, for most, is relegated to naps and the nighttime hours.

We expect some type of regularity with many of life's experiences. Such occurrences become so regular that we approach them almost unnoticed and with a minimum of observation.

Change and Time

Chapter 1 introduced us to life as process and the process of change. The two are inseparable. Imagine if everything in the world were immobile — from the quarks in an electron to the rotation of the earth on its axis and in its orbit around the sun. No one would be out walking, bicycling, driving cars, riding trains, or taking airplanes. Knowing what we do and having experienced what we have, this is an unimaginable scenario.

A child originates as the combination of an ovum and a sperm. The fetus grows in the womb, and when the child is born, the infant grows into a preschooler, a grade-schooler, a junior high student, an adolescent in high school, and then possibly a college graduate who furthers his or her development as a young adult. Barring illnesses or accidents, the young adult matures and continues to an age when his or her physical prowess declines. The process of aging sets in. Retirement may be a possibility. Aging into retirement, physical changes take place. These physical changes of aging accompany the individual to eventual decline and death. Where in this scenario, and in the environment surrounding it, are there not changes? The most accurate response is that change is always taking place.

Time is a way in which we measure such change. If there is no change, there is no time or manner in which to determine time. Time is a way of capturing change for pragmatic purposes. If you consider all the manners of determining time that exist, all rely on change taking place. The type of change, particularly with clocks and watches, is a change in position. Can you recall any type of time-telling that does not feature some form of change?

Early humans did not have timepieces. They were unaware of seconds, minutes, and hours. They awoke by the rhythms of the natural world. Sunrise and sunlight allowed them to conduct the activities essential to their lives. They hunted, fished, and gathered food and made their tools and shelters. They understood what animals would be doing at specific times, in addition to the seasonality of fruits; in fact, people used to live according to their circadian rhythms.

Some animals live in underground caves or deep in the ocean. They have body rhythms that allow them to survive in an environment where there is no day or night. These body rhythms allow them to eat, sleep, awake, and reproduce in regular patterns. Other natural forms of time and rhythm are evident in the tides caused by the moon, in plant behavior, in the nocturnal behavior of some animals and birds, in the movement of plankton in the ocean, and in the variation in hours of sunlight at the earth's poles.

Approximately five hundred years ago, humans discovered that the seasons they experienced were caused by the manner in which the earth tilted on its axis. At approximately the same time, Copernicus came to understand that the sun was the center of our solar system. The Chinese year was measured by the sun, with months calculated by the moon's movements. The Julian calendar remedied the problem of having extra days by having seven months with thirty-one days, four with thirty days, and one with twenty-eight days. Every four years, an extra day was added because a solar year does not add up exactly to three hundred sixty-five days. Those years have been labeled leap years. But nature does not care about its calendar.

In fact, the solar year is shorter than three hundred sixty-five and one-quarter days. More exactly, the annual calendar year is eleven minutes and fourteen seconds shorter than the standard three hundred sixty-five and one-quarter days. Taking this into account, the Gregorian calendar was formed. We use this calendar today.

Most adults in a postindustrial society accept having a regular calendar and watches to keep track of daily time. We make appointments, have...