The Myth of Quality Time

About a year ago, I wrote an essay called Living the Hyperopic Life.   It was a dissertation on the ideas of balance, living for now, living on purpose and making sure, when you looked back at the end, you are certain in your heart that it was a life well-lived.  One part dealt with taking time and making it worth something.   Blocks of time, snippets of time, anything you could carve out between the important things and responsibilities you had.   These little bits of time, strung together, would weave the tapestry of your life.  The more meaningful the time spent, the tighter the weave. If you could paint a picture of this tapestry, it would not be pretty.  It isn’t one of those neatly woven, ornate fabrics you see in stores.  The resemblance is...

Without Our Memory, We Don’t Really Exist

I brush my teeth with my right hand. I eat with my right hand. I shave with my right hand. I am considering writing with my right hand and I am left-handed. In Buddhism, part of the belief system centers around the precept of the present. They speak about being in the moment, focusing on the present, being present. The present is all there is since the future hasn’t come and the past has been left behind. In the movie Momento, the protagonist has no long term memory due to an accident, but knows his wife was killed. His entire existence is focused on finding who took his wife from him. The only way he can remember the facts he finds is to tattoo them on his body (presumably he couldn’t remember where he put that piece of paper he’d written them...