These are the Good Old Days

These are the Good Old Days

I wish somebody would have told me babe
Some day, these will be the good old days
All the love you won’t forget
And all these reckless nights you won’t regret
Someday soon, your whole life’s gonna change
You’ll miss the magic of these good old days.            

Songwriters: Andrew Joslyn / Ben Haggerty

Being a human being we run the risk of over thinking about the past or future and thus do not live in the present. Worries and anxieties and fears keep us away from appreciating today. We all know this, but I imagine that you, like me, seldom truly live in the moment.   It is so hard to pause from our self created business and seemingly important obligations. The truth is that we are more like ants than the near gods we imagine ourselves to be.   Imagine looking at an ant scurrying in the grass of your lawn and listening to the ants internal conversation which probably runs something like this: “Busy. Busy. Busy.   I have important work to do. I must never stop. My work is vital. What I do is important. My family and friends need me and rely upon me.   I must never stop.   Go. Go. Go.” Sound like most of us, does it not?

So, what are you and I going to do about this, and still care and act on the climate and ecological crisis that any thinking human being knows, deep in his/her bones, will sweep away all we know and love and care for? Ignore it? Stop thinking about the future? Try to bring the way we lived in the pre-industrial age back? Certainly not! All these only escape the challenge of have of living in the moment, in a moment that is connected, as a strand in a spider’s web is connected to all the other strands in the web, to the past and future. However, by living in the now that has ‘conversations’ with the past and future, conversations with other people and other species, we avoid the dangers of escapism and narcissism. As the Yogi Patañjali say:

Yoga takes you into the present moment, the only place where life exists.

 

Now you know what to do to help your grandchildren live in a world that has abundant life – not only human life – but LIFE in the bigger sense: live today like it is your last day on Earth and as if what you do NOW makes the difference between future life or death. Because, this is what living is really like.   You live today, or you die today.   Choose wisely my friend.