Creatures of the Present

When one transports via car, train, or various forms of human powered locomotion, the journey is obvious; the flow of the ground and rush of air. Flying, though, is like teleportation. Except for brief stints between taxis, the entire trip is spent under roofs from home to airport to airplane. The airplane is an especially strange creature: with the windows down, all sense of motion is lost, and some hours later the doors open to an entirely different land. There is a disconnect between the actual and perceived length of the trip.

How strange, too, that the mind is filled — dominated — by its immediate surrounding. The input from the immediate, ‘sensory universe’ overwhelms thoughts of the prior places. Even when taking a walk to lunch from the office, the office quickly becomes a distant memory, and seems impossibly far from the current place.

The trials of summer and winter are similar. The apartment is poorly insulated. In the winter, the ceiling leaks heat and the radiator is on forever, making it feel like summer. In the summer, the heat is relentless and the air conditioned air disappears. But what a joy those few days of spring are, when the radiator finally gurgles its last and the sun is mild, when the temperature of the room is just right. The hours spent lounging there do not make the past suffering worth it, not a stupid trial that earned the right to rest, but completely erase the past as if it never happened. What creatures of the present we are!