I was recently checking in on a musician turned spiritual teacher I know and came across him making the claim that “there is nothing but now.”
Before I go on to the main subject of this essay, which is the difference between making a philosophical claim about what’s true and saying some words which are intended to provoke a shift in consciousness, I want to take a look at what he said.
There is nothing but now.
Really?
There is not nothing but now?
If there was only now, there would be no past and no future. Which means there would be no causality. Which would mean nothing was happening.
Which would be pretty boring.
Pure “nowness” would, by definition, have no content whatsoever.
Further, who would this “nothing but now”- ness be relevant to?
There is no person moving through time and space who might reflect that “there is nothing but now” and feel better- such an act of reflection, causing a change in consciousness which is then felt a moment later, would require the reality of past, present, and future.
So what does “there is nothing but now” really mean?
I am going to suggest a charitable interpretation which will bring me to my main point.
It means “I am restricting my consciousness, as much as I can, to the present moment” or “you should restrict your consciousness as much as you can, to the present moment.”
Let’s put aside for a moment whether that is good or bad advice, doable or undoable or partially doable.
The person saying that clearly thinks it is good advice. They will probably point out that most disturbing emotions arise from focusing on either the past or the future: regret, guilt, shame, anger, fear, sadness, desire, lust, anxiety…. generally speaking this arise from thinking about the past or the future.
Are there any problems right now in this very moment? Probably not, at least probably not any problems we can’t handle. Even if we are very sick, for instance, we can probably manage the next breath, and concerns over how long we will be sick of whether we might die all take us into the future.
So clearly there is some wisdom to this advice. If we are being carried away by disturbing, painful emotions that we can’t seem to address in a constructive way, than learning to restrict our attention to the present moment and deal with only what needs to be done right now is good advice.
It is calming.
It is therapeutic.
It may even bring delightful surprises, like noticing what is ok in the present moment.
Like noticing the beautiful grain of the wood on this table. Like hearing the birds chirping. Like relaxing into my body.
If someone says to me, “There is nothing but now” I may intuitively grasp that this is a poetic statement, intuit the advice it contains, and redirect my attention to what most of us would call the now, basically the flowing experience of immediate concerns.
I might also take it to be a truth-claim, however. Believe it or not, this happens. I might conclude that the past is dead and gone and no longer in any way relevant or worthy of concern. I might come to believe that I should not at all direct my attention to caring for the future, but act on immediate impulse without regard to what I imagine might be the effect.
This happens, believe it or not.
“There is nothing but now” can be used both as a way to evade any responsibility for the past (“what happened yesterday between us is dead, man, why are you still living in a graveyard?”) and to avoid any analysis, moral or pragmatic, of my current behaviour (“I just like to flow, you know? Not over-think things.”)
Both attitudes are likely to cause others suffering, at the very least. I have had the misfortune to spend time with people who have embraced both attitudes, at least when it suited them.
We generally believe that both individuals and groups should take responsibility for their mistakes and be willing to learn from them — this holds from being willing to learn that what I said to you yesterday was insensitive all the way up to the Canadian government taking responsibility for yesterday’s wrongful conviction or the residential schools of past decades.
Folks who don’t consider how their behaviour might effect others, or less seriously don’t plan ahead on road trips, pack adequate clothing when travelling, or make sure they have appropriate health insurance or documentation, for instance- can cause others anything from minor inconvenience to major problems.
This is not to get into the effect these attitudes may have on ourselves if we hold them.
So we need to reckon with future and past whether we like it or not. Jesus’s advice to restrict our attention to the present day, and let the troubles of tomorrow handle themselves (Matthew 6:34), is a prescription against anxiety, not against forethought and living in the full reality of time and space.
Lastly, the assertion that “there is only now” is not only pragmatically and logically nonsense, it is also ontologically problematic. (Ontology is the study of what is, what has being, what the nature of being is.)
Do the past and future have being?
Some would say no, but from a scientific point of view this doesn’t hold up well. Quantum physics actually suggests quite the opposite. As Albert Einstein suggested, and others have argued since, mainstream physics actually suggests that everything that has ever been still exists, and everything that will happen already is.
This is called, somewhat unappealingly, Block Universe Theory, and has also been argued compellingly by the late Italian philosopher Emanuelle Severino. Counter-intuitive it may be but is also appears to be true. It may help to explain the nature of the vivid reclamation of seemingly lost memories, as well as precognitive dreams and intuitions — but those are fascinating topics for another time.
Is there anything aside from now? Yes, there is, and though sometimes it is healthiest not to attend to it but to be concerned only with the immediate present, as a life strategy it is generally best to reckon with the fullness of reality, as challenging as that may sometimes be.
I think I prefer what I imagine is the Zen answer:
"There is nothing but now."
WHACK!
"Ouch! The past and future are real."
WHACK!