Presence

Men expend their lives trapped in wishful thinking. Every man is always bending his mind toward something not yet realized, something which is only valuable to him as an object looked forward to. Humans are trapped in the pattern of lacking fulfillment and desperately seeking that which is materially satisfying, because we live in a material world. Men pander their lives away in lust and greed, endlessly seeking and never realizing that they can never actually get what it is they are professing to want in the first place. Why do men believe that receiving a material possession will make him happy? The allotment of stuff and things is in no way correlated to true happiness, or, more importantly contentment and fulfillment. Man achieves nothing but ceaselessly wanting more, what is it that keeps him from being satisfied with what he has- and, specifically, what is it that causes him to long toward the future, and deny the present reality he is living in. More importantly, I would say that men have taken this pattern which is applied to materialism and reapplied it to mental and spiritual realms of life. In relationships people psychologically assess that 'once this or that is as I want it to be, then I can proceed accordingly.' In the same way that men seek physical objects according to their instincts and desires they model the rest of relationships in their lives; relationships with other humans, with themselves, and with God or spirituality, or whatever it may be, as being incomplete until another thing may happen to satisfy their own impulses. The problem with this is that it expunges and erases accountability, and honesty to reality.

Throughout all of a man's life there is one thing that he has for certain: the day in front of him. The present time and moment, and the timelessness of that instant. The wishful thinking I described above is a denial of the present and a attempt to foretell the future, a future that no man can know, nor does any man have authority over. Honesty is necessary to realize that every instant we complete a thought or action is homologous to every other instant of our lives. We are incessantly changing and growing, but this truth of presence remains continuous. As a result, by necessity a man must base decisions off the reality that wishful thinking is ignorance and that instead he must realize his ideals about life in every instant that he lives. When men believe they can decide what is best for themselves and cause the future for themselves they are mistaken. First, no man can say what is best for himself in the material world. Second, a man only has a slippery hold on the future according to the laws of probability; namely the physical laws that govern this universe that things commonly proceed in a known and predictable fashion. However, a man is still operating based on the laws of probability and is not actually causing a future event to become accomplished based on his own authority and will.

The essential point is that craving a future that is different from one's present circumstance is evidence of a lack of fulfillment. Any pattern of life that is feed by this dynamic or by its nature encourages this dynamic, such as procrastinating, mindless indulgence in sensual entertainment (movies, TV shows, magazines, shopping, eating), drinking, smoking, sexual addiction, is utter insanity and must be understand for what it is: a testament to the inner dissatisfaction of man's heart, and the realization that contentment must certainly does not come from any instantly appealing source.