We all have a very particular way of seeing life as we grow up. When we are born and are babies, only basic needs matter for our survival. Crying is the way we communicate with the outside world. The gradual growth and development of the brain leads to an evolution in the degree of complexity and interaction with the environment and with parents. Language is gradually learned, and communication, first through gestures and facial expressions, is added to the way we communicate with the outside world. Verbal language appears a few weeks later... first only with babbling, but little by little it is replaced by words. First simpler ones, and then more evolved ones. The baby learns to communicate in this way because the mind realizes that needs are better met with a better way of communicating with the outside world.
Development takes place, and by the age when children go to school, the whole world grows in their minds. A reality that consisted only of their existence and that of their parents now includes friends and classmates. Interaction with others develops.
As we grow up, our minds try to project into the future. We begin to live with ideas, thoughts of situations that have not yet happened, that we would like to happen, or that we fear may happen.
We gradually move forward in life, with ideas that make our minds more focused on what may happen in a few minutes, days, weeks, months, or even years...
We end up focusing on things that are yet to happen, and that are not, strictly speaking, reality.
We accustom our minds to this imagined future, with projections and idealizations.
And by entering into this routine and normalization of the mind, we shape the present... We adapt it to our expectations, our projections of what is yet to come, and which may not even happen.
In this chain of events, something happens. We lose sight of the true importance of living in the moment... and we end up reducing our own experience of living day-to-day, but not in an automated way.
When we enter adulthood, this inability to be in the present moment becomes even more noticeable. Living in the moment becomes only a desire, but not a reality. On Monday, when we arrive at work, we only think about the weekend that has already passed, or what is yet to come. We do not allow our mind to be attentive to what is truly happening.
At breakfast, we are already thinking about what we are going to do next, without even having a true perception of what we are eating...
This way and form that our mind creates, and in which we allow ourselves to become entangled, ends up being very reductive.
When we begin to age, and as life progresses, we end up having another way of looking at it. Friends, some of them are passing away... In old age, when we are still lucid, we begin to realize that long-term plans are ridiculous, and that they may never even happen. They will not happen. And that is, in a way, enough to begin to bring our minds to where life actually “is.”
If, in the course of our existence, we happen to encounter a serious illness that has no cure, we go through a situation of great anguish and stress, where the proximity of the final day takes on a greater presence. At this point, it is almost impossible to think about the future. And as much as it hurts, there is an immediate benefit for us, despite the cruel finitude with which life presents itself. The real benefit is conferred on the experiences that are happening, that are ongoing, because of their inherent intrinsic value, because of their rarity.
Free image from Pixabay.com
Original text written by me in Portuguese and translated with DeepL.com (free version)
