Yesterday evening, while I was walking home in the dark, I was thinking about time. Yes, my mind can be a weird companion, particularly when I'm alone and tired.
So, I was thinking about time and had this image of two big rooms in my mind.
The past is an expanding room, and it contains our memories, successes, failures, regrets, remorses, etc. We keep putting stuff into it all our life.
The other room, the future, is where there are all our dreams, aspirations, goals, and fears. This one is a shrinking room.
The present, however, it's a different thing.
It's a liminal space.
And a very narrow one.
Nothing stays in it.
Things just constantly move from the room of the future into the space of the past. One at a time.
And this movement never stops.
We can't stop it.
The only thing we can do is choose what moves from one space to the other. That's it.
What dream or aspiration is going through the present and becomes a memory right now?
And even if you don't choose or are distracted, things keep moving through.
At the end of my short walk, I had the image of an hourglass in my mind.
I thought how important it is to keep refilling the future space and to let go of some of the heavy stuff I've archived in the past room.
But mostly how important it is to be fully aware of what I let through the liminal space of the present.
Because there's the only space where I can do something.