3-4-26; 8pm | Giving Up Your Future Will Be Your Salvation

I am writing as I sit on my porch on a beautiful March evening. My back porch is not a pretty one (for some reason it has is carpeted?) but the experience of sitting in the low-light glow of solar powered bulbs and swaying gently on the wooden swing is as beautiful as it would be on any other porch.

I've been reading the posthumous work of Alan Watts, a collection of his radio talks summarized in a book titled "The Tao of Philosophy". Many people have qualms with Watts and I am among the many, but disagreeing with an author has yet to stop me from reading their works. While I personally think his tendency to water down topics like anarchist state philosophy and Zen Buddhism are reductive in the bad way, I can appreciate his ideas in the same way I hope people appreciate my substack; Watts called himself a "philosophical entertainer" rather than a guru and his ideas are best consumed in the moment as a line of thinking rather than an argument. I think he would agree with this claim, even if he presented ideas as claims to truth more often than not.

One idea of his that I found compelling was that people live in the future to the extent that if a positive future is not guaranteed, we will structure our spiritual believes to replace it rather than resolve ourselves to the moment. I think of Abrahamic religions and this is immediately apparent. We suffer in this life (and there is no future in this life without suffering) but if proper measures are taken, the next life will be without suffering. I come from a fundamentalist Christian upbringing. My father is a pastor and my house was one that had no Harry Potter, no Pokémon, etc. As you can imagine, it was easy for my mind to immediately jump to a critique of Christianity (along with its siblings of Judaism and Islam) as I read.

This is fair and easy, but nothing worth reading can ever be left with a fair and easy digestion in the mind. Here's a fun thought... I meditate for my own wellbeing. I am always working on understanding myself more and becoming at peace with the moment. I've found that meditation helps immensely with this. Now, if I were to sit down and meditate with the goal of becoming more at peace with the moment... what am I doing?

If you said "living in the future", you are correct! You may step up to the front of the class and pick a fun eraser from this box that I keep under the desk or something. I don't know what teachers use as rewards these days.

While "living in the future" is the easiest way to crunch an idea down to a variable that can be referenced over the course of a conversation (or essay), I think the more accurate way to put it would be to "live in service of the future". This is what we all do. When I go to work so I can pay my rent, I am living in service of the future. When you get up early to do whatever it is you're getting up early for, you are living in service of the future. Anyone that is not a hedonist has lived in service of the future. This is how existing often works.
Watts likes to call everything an organism. I love abstracting to something universal and I think this abstraction is particularly compelling. An organism, be it a microbe, a badger, an oak tree, or a government, will make an effort to sustain itself. This is living in service of the future.

I cannot condemn living in service of the future without abandoning reason and making a fool of myself.
I can* politely suggest that it may be advantageous to avoid allowing it to take priority in our spirituality, dharma, relationship with the universe, or whatever else you feel like calling it.

There are two reasons to avoid this. Number one is especially obvious; it centers you and your discomfort in what should be beyond you. If you boil down your spiritual practice to something that functions as an existential anxiety medication, you are probably doing something wrong.
Secondly, and more covertly, it robs you of being whatever you are right now. You do not start reading a book with the goal of reading the last sentence. You do not listen to a song with the sole intent of hearing it end. You are not the end product, sure, but you aren't suppose to be. You are point in time. You are not any less than a "better you" just because you are earlier.

"Do you criticize the valleys for being low and praise the peaks for being high? No. You just say it’s great; it’s the way it is."

Now what am I suggesting you do about this? Isn't that always the question? What do I change? What do I control in response to this? I don't know. I'm just some guy writing on his porch. I'm drinking a beer and after this I'm going to bed. I'll suggest something, and you can chose whether it is a truth to you or not. Awareness is great, but it is not an end goal. If you truly need an end goal, make it the moment that you are in right now.

My goal right now is not to finish this essay. If that were my goal, I would have already stopped writing. My goal right now is to write this essay. After that my goal will be to go inside and get ready for bed. I meet my goals consistently because I make them achievable to me now, not me in the future. I can't do anything in the future; I am stuck in the now.

If there has been one thing that is the closest to a "secret of happiness" for me, it has been this. The moment is all that there is. It is not good, it is not bad, it just is. It happens to also be where you are, so *stop trying to escape it. If I am at work, I strive to be in the moment. If I start thinking of what I will do after my shift or what I will do on my next off day, I recenter my attention on the moment. Making coffee is not better than whatever I will do on my next off day, but it is infinitely more real now, and I am part of that reality. I may go hike on the weekend and if I do I will strive to be in the moment then, but for now I am making coffee. If you can do this, you will live an incredible life.

That is what I have to say tonight. I will now make a goal of posting this, and after that I will make a goal of going to bed. I love you. I hope your day is lovely and you find peace lurking in every moment you look for it in.