The Tao of Now

“Time comes from the future, which does not yet exist, into the present     which has no duration, and goes into the past, which has ceased to exist.”             -- St. Augustine     “The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion,     however persistent.”             --Einstein This smirking little man with rounded dome, his eyes like beads set into hard-cooked eggs, wants me to contemplate “the Power of Now,” beside which all the rest, from head to legs, is nothing more than fiction, or the dregs of tattered ego trying to find its home. The you of you, he says, eventuates as you prepare to die and realize the I of me, no matter how alert, no matter how I’ve towered in men’s eyes, will soon be naught, or very small in size while everything I’ve done evaporates. Well thank you, Genii, for this fine release: I’ll give up washing dishes, paying bills, seeing the dentist, walking my old dog, and jettison a thousand other ills this flesh is heir to in pursuit of thrills whose very nature means they soon must cease. Alas poor Mozart, diddled by the cheat of aberrant creation catching fire when all it meant was notes parading past the dazzled eyesight of th’enchanted choir whose timing was perfection, though for hire, their bass boom sonorous, their treble sweet. I wonder why this fellow wrote this book, which has his photo prominently displayed, if all accounts we owe can be marked “paid” and contemplation of our spirit-self makes all the rest seem but a poor charade, the bait we foolish fish eat with the hook.