a skeptic

Image by © ahmosher via Flickr

There are those people who fall asleep as soon as the plane is in the air and sleep through the entire flight.

These are believers. They ignore the process in favor of the results. They propose a conclusion, even proclaim it to be the only conclusion that’s acceptable, before submitting that conclusion to the same critical thought process most people apply to other aspects of their lives.

Then there are those of us who stay awake the entire flight, staring out the windows and watching the other passengers.

We are those to whom the process is the most fascinating part of reality. The end game, being inevitable, is uninteresting. It will unfold in its own way and time. No one knows for certain which philosophy will win out after we die. So we see little value on placing too much importance on that. Since we are alive now, in this time and place, in the body we inhabit, we might as well focus on the here-and-now. The present moment is the ultimate reality. We are only truly alive at the point in space-time when the future becomes the past. We can’t even measure that period of time it’s so short. We can only experience it. That’s what non-believers can enjoy, the experience of the moment. We find it because we are looking for it. When your focus is 500 feet down the trail you miss the universe under your feet.

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