The edge of becoming: getting ready to be squeezed by the Constant Now
As you reach each moment of unfolding time, you are in some physical, mental and emotional arrival state and contained within some precise situation or structures.
However long you feel “now” is at the minute (see previous post), what is going on when you reach what I call the Constant Now (not the spiritual Eternal Now, although we could connect that up one day), and how does it fit in with what we’ve seen so far on structures, relationships, the layers of past you and your most recent events? What are you aware of in each conscious two-second moment, each minute?
The Constant Now is where the rubber meets the road. On one side, you have all of your past accumulated baggage inside or around you, ready to condition whatever happens next. On the other, you have some unfolding external life situations right in front of you that are about to demand action or suggest you do something.
You are about to be pressured by existence, by the inner and the outer, the old and the new, the past and the future. Hopefully you won’t be completely crushed but your system will go into overdrive to try to work out what that means for you, what you do next about it and what results you hope to achieve from that action.
But we’re getting too many seconds ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind. Your brain, remember, starts processing information in the hundreds of milliseconds range.
And before we introduce anything new, let’s talk about arrival situations and states.
First, as well as all of the longer-term, higher-level structural stuff we have started to talk about, for every moment of your life you are in, you are contained in or constrained by some immediate physical surroundings or structures. There is an enormous range of options here but they are always precisely describable.
In investigations or great novels, the specific details are very important.
Are you lying on a tropical beach getting ready to go for a swim in the sea? Are you sitting on a metro train in a tunnel underneath the city, on your way home from work? Are you a cop out patrolling the streets at night in a dangerous part of town? Are you a pilot strapped into the cockpit of an airliner?
Are you alone or in the company of some others? What is your role in the group? Are you somehow in charge or in control or are you just a follower or a passenger?
What is generally the event that is happening around you? All is calm on your tropical beach as the waves lap against the sand. The metro train carriage is packed with people as it bumps and twists slowly through the tunnel to the next stop. The cop and his partner drive down mostly empty streets at that time of night as they listen to dispatchers on the radio organise responses to other problems in the city. The pilots run through pre-flight checklists, push switches, start the engines and request flight clearances from air traffic controllers before taxiing to the runway.
Wherever you are in the world “now”, the few metres physically around you can become very important, especially if life unfolds in some wrong direction next.
You can also describe your physical and mental arrival state.
Let’s start with the physical: Are you tired right now? Fatigued from days of sleeping badly? Exhausted after 10 night shifts in two weeks? What about hungry or thirsty? When was the last time you grabbed something nutritious? Maybe you just had a big meal and are tired after eating! Are you taking medication that affects your energy?
Are you out for beers with your friends? Happy drunk? Completely wasted? Have you just smoked some drugs or taken some pills? Maybe you just had an accident and are lying physically injured somewhere or your “now” moment is the middle of a fight or a violent assault on you, your body bleeding and you can see it dripping onto the floor.
And how has that physical state just evolved? Still feeling energetic after the last few hours or you could do with a break or some sleep at this point?
Then we can do the same with emotions and moods: are you happy and optimistic today, confident you can get it all done? Or are you sad or depressed and would rather go and cry in the corner for a couple of hours first? Maybe you are in complete zombie mode becuase of ongoing stress or a deep relationship problem.
After thinking about your immediate physical surroundings, and your physical, emotional or mental states right now, then consider three other aspects, still before we introduce anything new: what are you paying attention to, what is your brain predicting will happen next, and what does your perception of time feel like?
On the tropical beach, you are watching the waves and dreaming of adventures and fun later tonight with friends through half-closed eyes, not a care in the world. You left your watch in the hotel hours ago, so you have no idea what times it is. At most, your actions might consist of slowly turning the pages of a novel as the warm sun shines down. Next up: a swim in the sea!
In the metro carriage on the way home, after all those night shifts, you can barely keep your eyes open as the train crawls towards your stop, which you know is next. It feels like it’s taking forever, even though somewhere in the back of your mind you know it’s only a 20-minute journey from the hospital. You manage not to close your eyes and watch the other passengers as you listen to some music in your earphones.
The cops are rested and alert tonight and are not just driving down the streets but actively scanning them as they listen to the dispatchers chatter on the radio, some calls more urgent than others. The officers are looking out for the next danger or threat or weapon or criminal behaviour. That’s why they’re there, that’s their job, that’s what they’ve been trained for, that’s what society expects of them.
The pilot is rested, the copilot less so, stressed by problems at home, but they rattle through the pre-flight checklists together, push the switches and start the engines. The right information and data needs to come up on the right screens and instruments in exactly the right order, given their flight parameters, fuel loads and routes today. The copilot requests taxi and take-off clearances from air traffic controllers and they expect to be airborne in two minutes.
Now you are at the constant now, in the moment, on the very edge of becoming.
You have the higher-level, longer-term structural, relationship and memory elements, you have your recent events, and you are now in a specific situation and surroundings, with some number of other people, in a physical and emotional state, paying attention to some things, expecting some things to happen next and with some perception of how time is passing.
What will life throw at you next?
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