The Conspiracy Against This Moment

Ram Dass wrote,

“Giving up experiences of the past or expectations of the future leaves only this present moment. Everything is present in this moment—everything! When I burrow into this moment, there is nothing else.” Ram Dass, Being Ram Dass

Everything, he says.

With an exclamation point.

I went back and checked. Ram Dass did not use many of those.

Something in this sentence mattered to him.

It is also very hard to believe!

Think about how today went.

At breakfast, you were already thinking about the meeting.

On the walk, you listened to a podcast, but may have been replaying yesterday’s conversation.

At dinner, the phone was face down, but still glowing in your mind.

You were there for all of it.

And somehow, you were really barely there at all.

The present moment often feels thin. Invisible.

The past contains the scenes that mattered. The future contains what might still happen. The phone contains everyone else’s life at once.

Here is the kitchen. The commute. The same face across the same table.

So you leave.

Just enough to make the moment easier to get through.

Then, every so often, a frightening thought arrives:

What if this is how my whole life is passing?

Not badly.

Just without me fully inside it.