The Past has already happened. The future is not yet here. We live on the tiny sliver of the present, remembering what was, anticipating what is. It is such brief a moment – do we ever have a chance to be conscious of it?
There are metaphors that can bring us this precious but fleeting moment of the present in which we live nearer. One of those is very solid: the bridge.
A bridge is the architectural manifestation of the state of between. You have left one side of the river bank but not yet arrived on the other side. It is flux caught in a motionless state. This is what makes looking at bridges so fascinating.
We live in the state of now, the tiny sliver of present between the deep past and the high future.
We can remember the past and we can interpret it. But can we ever get a hold of it? The past can be interpreted in so many ways, depending on perspective, that it, too, escapes our grasp.
The future is not yet here and we anticipate it, using our experience. The experience is based on the past, so our view of the future is also based on that past.
So we have to make a decision what our past is, pick one perspective out of the many perspectives, so we have a solid ground for our plans of the future. Sometimes we find out that our understanding of our past has been flawed, and we have to change it. And with it, we change our future.
We will never be able to truly understand the present.
Between a changing past and a future that is only to come we live on that tiny sliver of present, which connects both the floating past and the uncertain future.
Those who live best seem to not worry about the past, and not want to control the future. They seem to give up that urge to do the impossible, and surf rather what is coming at them than trying to go a certain path (against the grain of things happening around them)
Those who live best in the present, live and accept and even enjoy that state of flux. They are surfing the now.
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