Center of Gravity

The other day I was talking to a friend about dimensional movement. We figured that, if three-dimensional movement is about freedom in space, then fourth dimensional movement could be about freedom in time. We get a taste of this anytime we place our consciousness in the past or future. Neither exists in a strict sense; we can’t interact with them in ways that we can see. However, there’s an undeniable shifting in energy when you think about the past or future. Once I was a boy; one day I will be an old man. Even just acknowledging that has an intangible but not-insignificant bearing on my current state. Why is this? I’m confident that we’re vastly limited in our perception of how “time” really works. We may never have a full understanding, but it’s important to consider and experiment with what little access we do have.

Note: I’m not fixing to propose anything scientifically legitimate, I’m just exploring some things I’ve seen and felt. I encourage you to do the same.

At the end of every week, I sit down and take stock of my upcoming schedule. It’s an exciting but anxious feeling, to sit down and see the many ways the future can unfold. It’s more than that, though. There’s a feeling of existential and perceptual dilation, a zooming out. In that moment, the majority of my energy is dedicated to something that only exists because I’m willing it to be. It’s different the more you zoom out, too. If I think anywhere beyond a month forward, I feel a detachment inside myself, like a tether snapping, and it becomes harder and harder to regain presence in the moment. I rarely allow myself to think about the future past years and decades because it takes an enormous amount of effort to ground myself again. The further out I go, the more possibilities there are. I come out of those sessions mentally drained.

As tiring as it can be, it’s important to spend time in the future. If we don’t, there’s no movement. I’ll jokingly say that I do things now to be kind to my future self, but in a way, that’s literally what’s happening. I think about the things I’ve done in my past that have set me up for where I am now, and I feel an immense gratitude because, in the present, I technically have absolutely no control over what I’ve done in the past to make my current situation possible. In that way, the past, present, and future versions of myself are entirely different people. Sometimes, when I’m working on something monotonous or difficult, like exercising or saving money, I imagine how my future self will feel. I remind my future self to thank the current-self that’s working towards a greater goal. This sounds simple, but I have a gut feeling that there’s something more powerful here. Think about how strongly you feel when you’re disappointed in yourself for not having done something sooner. It’s an inordinately powerful feeling. There has to be something that we aren’t seeing, something to do with the way we move through time and how The Self is divided—or multiplied—across it.

Going back in time works differently, but it has a similarly powerful energy. Try this right now: imagine a potent memory, something that meant a lot to you. Remember how you felt, the context, the people, the weather. You won’t get everything, but you’ll get the most important parts without trying. You’re not there in the present, but even with an incomplete memory, it’s like transporting yourself to that time. When you come back to the present, there’s an undeniable feeling that you’ve changed; that you’ve arrived from someplace else. We have an entire repository of experiences to pull from, to process, to understand, to relive. People warn against living the past. That’s valid. You can lose a lot of time to nostalgia. Then again, I think some people don’t spend enough time in the past. Think of it this way—if you have a collection of the best movies in the world, would you see each one only once? Each memory is a lesson. If you have a big decision to make, a major fork in the road that will dictate your future, why wouldn’t you consult the past? It’s your closest primary resource. Again, simple and widely known (“those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it”) but I feel that this connection between past and future speaks to a more complex relationship that goes beyond simple causation. I think they’re integrated in a way we can’t understand; I think we can move between them with more freedom than we know.

I think it’s great to be present eg aware, lucid, etc, but it’s not always in our best interest to be in the present. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that all we really have is the past and future. The present is like a point on a graph. It marks space, but it holds no substance. Everything that exists either has been or will be, and the sooner we grasp that, the sooner we master our situation. The past and future are pieces of a total consciousness that, when wielded by our present self, can shape reality. Or something like that.