Nate Hagens

There's a phrase from the Christian contemplative tradition, the sacrament of the present moment from some priest, I forget the name of, who used it in the 18th century.

The idea is that whatever is occurring right now is the form in which life is being given to you.

And to be elsewhere

is some sort of a refusal of this gift.

And across traditions, across centuries, there are similar conclusions to this.

The present is the whole of life presenting itself to you in installments.

If the work I do on the Great Simplification has any meaning at all, I think it must come down to this.

The future is what we are trying to protect, but the present is the only place we can protect it from.

And to say the world is precious and finite and rapidly changing and then to spend our days imagining 2035 or 2050 is to abandon the one position from which anything can actually be done.

Presence is the ground our work stands on.

And carrying this knowledge does not set us apart, it ties us more tightly to what is here now.

And anything less is a way of conceding what we claim to be defending.

Like last week, I will close with something intended to be practical because these abstractions are not that helpful.

And again, I'm giving this advice kind of to myself as well.

So when you have noticed that you've left the present, try this.

First, don't scold yourself.

The default mode network is going to activate 10,000 times a day, no matter what time, what you do.

Um, scolding is just another form of leaving.

Notice instead that you actually have come back.

It's the coming back to this moment.