The more I find myself moving to a place in life where I feel congruency between my aspirations and the actuality of what I am doing every day the more I have started to doubt the idea that the past is responsible for my present.
I have long started to doubt the notions of causality which - as we have been told - is basically what makes things happen in life and nature. If you want to read more on my issues with causality come check out my miniseries "Questioning the Concept of Causality"
You know, we all basically have this fundamental assumption that the past is somehow the cause and reason for the individuals we are today. And while I do draw from my experiences and see the merit of things that I want to explore deeper and get more involved in, learning lessons from my mistakes and picking myself up after a failure to change how I approach life I feel this explanation is no longer sufficient to "explain" where I am today and to understand how my life has turned into this magnificent turn of events compared to who I once was.
If we pretend that time is anything more than what our awareness decodes and makes sense of in regards to reality unfolding around us we have to at least consider the effect that the future plays for my present. I have started to feel more and more that it is not really the past driving my present but that my present is pulled by the future...
Seeing the curious incidents of my life that changed everything for me, the only reason to cite how the past would be responsible for these shifts is that - due to past experiences - I had finally been ready to say "yes" to a new question life had asked me. Maybe a question I had always said no to before.
But if I look at how my life is moving ever closer to a palpable threshold of sorts, and how all the little aspects and bits of experiences I have gathered seem to point towards a steadily increasing focal point of meaning and congruency I can't shake the idea that it is really the "goal" or the "climax" of this lifetime pulling me from the future to itself. Hmm, I feel putting this into English is awkward...
If you'll allow me to use an analogy: It's not that I am taking a flight because I got up in the morning, deciding I wanted to visit New Zealand but that New Zealand is what has always been waiting for me, pulling me towards it and making all the little reasons and causes for going there fall into place early in my life, so that I could rationalize in hindsight that it is those reasons that eventually made me want to fly there.
Really, we take a flight somewhere because of the destination, not because of the sum of our experiences that came prior. Quite the opposite at times: We go places because of our lack of experience and this almost aetherical draw we experience for something we can't quite deciper yet, a call for adventure or simply our intuition lovingly asking us to visit the place we fell called to visit. Doing the things we feel enticed to do. Leaving my comfort zone because of a deep inner sense that it is what needs to happen...
Likewise I feel meeting the woman I am so fond of has not been the result of my past activities but rather a preparation for where it is I am going. Maybe even a cosmic plan of sorts. And being aware enough to be able to recognize that pull and act in accordance with that pull towards a "destination" that neither she nor I can even make out in our minds right now. But we do somehow KNOW that that destination (be it a place, a way of living or a grand cosmic mission we can't even understand yet) is what all our lives were aiming towards. From the beginning.
I still feel this is putting it in very complex terms (maybe unnecessarily so) - something that actually feels quite simple. Maybe the simplicity of that intuitive pull is why the mind has so much trouble accepting or even entertaining the notion that all we EVER do is to live on intuitional autopilot, where the mind always does its best to cite "causes" from the past to try and convince us that those past reasons are what got us anywhere, when in fact it might just be the grandiose cosmic pull of where it is we are going that is responsible for what we are experiencing in the present and before.
I guess now that I think of it it must be what people referred to as "fate" long before the notions of causality and materialism have so convinced us Westerners to treat our past like a god - all responsible and all powerful. I am not so sure that we should give the past so much power and discard other models entirely.
Sure, fear for the future is always abused by the control structure to make people behave a desired way, but if we manage to get ourselves free from the remote controlled mode of existence and instead trust our own path - with complete and unwavering faith in the merit of the pull from the future - I think joy for the future of ourselves is an unbeatable driver for our current experience of life.
Speaking on the past I do find that it is not even half the equation for realizing what my life is or how it came to be the way it is unfolding right now. Just like the ship is not moved by the wake but leaves it as a faint trace of how things unfolded...
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Man, this is interesting, although I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Yeah, we credit the past so much, probably because it's all we have experienced ( I guess ). We also keep trying to focus on the now but the future is kind of put in third place, although it's the only thing ahead of us, where are desires are focused on - the thing(s) to look forward to, that keeps us going.
Love this write up and I'm so excited for you.
when are you planning to leave?
P.S. Would love to have you as a guest on the podcast that @whatamidoing and I started last week. I love the way your mind works!
Much love!
<3
Don't try wrapping your head around it too much, it's just an idea and concept. Still not entirely sure myself how I see it, it varies from day to day depending on mood and level of awareness. Maybe it's all just bunk, ahaha.
It would be my pleasure to come on a podcast with you two! I feel honored!
My woman and I will be leaving within the next ten days or so, wrapping up the rest of our preparations as best we can. It would be a good time to do the podcast then, late January or so. I will have to check that out, I have not been keeping up with all of ya as much as I wanted to but once we get going on the road there will be plenty of time to do just that.
All the best to ya Vince <3