now is forever

there is a sense in which eternity equals the present.

we can never directly experience the past or the future.  they don't "exist", though we can observe their effects in the present.

i've developed a very unhelpful habit of viewing the future this way — it's quite distracting.  for example, if i'm writing an email to a parent and i say something about continuing to discuss/interact "in the future", in the back of my mind i'm thinking "that's not true... we can't possibly interact in the future!!" we can only ever act in the present.

i'm at the point of the semester (thank God i can still think of life in terms of semesters) where my responsibilities have piled up to the point of paralyzation.  when i think about all of the things i have to do, i lose the initiative/ability to begin.  yet, the only way to finish is to start.

this paralyzation i'm referring to is connected to my last post about grading.  it's also connected to my post entitled "expectations matter".  ...in fact, i'm becoming more and more convinced that the secret to life is seeing the connections between things.  [every once in a while, i'll tell my students "THE secret to life".  i have a long list of little tips, but i always pretend like there is only one secret].

the real connection here is reading.  i love to read, but i have barely read at all in the last few months.  why? because i've been paralyzed by the amount and variety of books i want to read.  i've never been someone to read multiple books at the same time, but lately i've been trying to split time between 100 Years of Solitude, The Pacific, A War Like No Other, and The Brothers Karamozov.  stressful, and unproductive.  today, i chose to forget i had started all of those books and started a new book: Aleph.

it was a book Stefany (she just advanced to the next round of Olympic qualifying for beach volleyball for Guatemala, by the way) sent to me as a birthday present, and i chose to forget it's place in line, and just start reading.  i finished it today, too.  believe it or not, it fit right in with everything else going on in my head.  and, consequently, this post.

last year when we were about to graduate, there was a sense of urgency between the underclassmen and upperclassmen.  a realization that what we had would not, could not, last.  my group of seniors had a pretty solid group of freshmen that we spent a lot* of time with (*a lot, in comparison to most senior/freshmen relationships i suppose.  that is one of the beauties of Hillsdale..).  so one day, several (Aaron, Robert, Brian, Ralph, me) of us went to brunch at The Palace.  we were having a discussion about being proactive.  you can't be satisfied with talking about doing things, you have to actively make things happen.  at some point during this talk i decided to attempt to highlight my point/summarize everything by saying "later is now."  then, in the silence that followed, drive the point home:

"now is forever."