Where do you dwell?





















During my college years it would be safe to say that I was a disciple of sorts of philosopher Alan Watts. I read. I listened. I attended everything Alan Watts.

I met Alan several times the most memorable being at a party held in his honor at a professor friend's home.

Into the wee hours of the morning Alan and his disciples talked. Talked. Talked. And more talk.

Lots of red wine in tall ice filled glasses as such was the favorite drink of my professor friend.

Guitar playing. Hippie dancing. Lots of smoke.

You get the picture. It was a groovy scene, man.

An excerpt from Alan's book, the Wisdom of Insecurity came to mind this morning and I took time to read this particular passage.

"What is the use of planning to be able to eat next week unless I can really enjoy the meals when they come? If I am so busy worrying about how to eat next week that I cannot fully enjoy what I am eating now, I will be in the same predicament when next week's meals become 'now.'

"If my happiness at this moment consists largely in reviewing happy memories and expectations, I am but dimly aware of this present. I shall still be dimly aware of the present when the good things that I have been expecting come to pass. For I shall have formed a habit of looking behind and ahead, making it difficult for me to attend to the here and now. If, then, my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world.

"After all, the future is quite meaningless and unimportant unless, sooner or later, it is going to become the present. Thus to worry about a future which is not going to become present is hardly more absurd than to plan for a future which, when it comes to me, will find me 'absent', looking fixedly over its shoulder instead of into its face."

And so it goes.

Where are you living?