Experiencing what is, thinking of what will be, wondering how what is will affect what will be, letting your thoughts about what will be define your experience of what is, letting your feelings about what you are experiencing be good only in the case that they are good for what will be, only allowing yourself to be a certain way, which is to say only allowing what there is to be a certain way, as you experience what is, and making these requirements for yourself based on what you want yourself to be at some point in the future, which is to say making requirements for what will be in the future—in other words, trying to control the future. All the time doing this in the present, to manipulate what will be in the future, instead of just allowing the present to be itself, and thus looking deeper into the experience of the present with your full self that also exists in that present, letting water run together with water, instead of always focusing the attention of your present self on thoughts of the future, letting oil try but fail to run together with water. Future thoughts are merely experiences of a reality that has yet to pass and thus are less clear and beautiful than the thoughts of a present reality that exists right in front of your nose and overwhelms your appetite for attention over and over again if you really look deep enough and never run out of things to see.

Like just now, I am high, unable to function too well in terms of what my experience will demand of me in the future, especially when I have to return to work, but I don’t have to work for four days, and all that my present experience demands of me is that I relax, and so I ask myself, why let thoughts of the future change my experience of the present? Especially when my current state of being high is actually better suited for this present reality and will certainly change, many times perhaps, before the future experience of going back to work according to which I am now judging my present self and for which I now prematurely try to change my present self, and as a result would make my present self more ill-suited for the present experience in favor of being better-suited for a future experience. Why does that make sense? It does not, I don’t think.

Or, with my writing, I paused because I was going to write something but forgot, so I stopped writing, and started thinking of what I had forgotten, trying to remember, thinking of what the writing would be if I could only remember what I had forgotten, thinking of the future of the writing and ignoring what I was thinking in the present, restricting my experience of my present thought process so that I could pull a thought forward from the past in the interest of a future version of the piece that I had conceived of only in my mind.