Looking Forward Toward The Present

Leaning Toward Wisdom

Pearl Jam's 1996 song, Present Tense (from their No Code album), is a fitting theme for today's show. To live in the present tense. But first, as I am wont to do, let me give you the impetus for today's show. I’m watching some house hunting kind of show on HGTV, the kind I normally don't watch - I much prefer the renovation shows. A couple is going through a few houses and in each house one or both exclaim how they could see themselves doing this or that in the space. Says the husband about a basement, "I could see myself enjoying watching games on a big TV down here." Says the wife of the bathroom, "I could see myself relaxing in that soaker tub." Watch any episode of any such show and I guarantee you'll hear people say similar things. People put themselves into these homes as though they already own them. It's exactly what sellers and realtors want people to do. Imagine. It's a uniquely human capacity - to project ourselves into a future that hasn't yet happened. My longtime fascination with how our minds work - or sometimes fail to work - kicked in. Since my books are mostly gone now and the few physical books I kept are boxed up, I looked through my Kindle library - all 718 titles. One problem I've discovered through the years - a problem with neuroscience (the study of the structure or function of the nervous system and brain) - is there are plenty of charlatans in the arena. It's why I'm so firmly opposed to notions about "the secret," manifestation, and other "be supernatural" admonitions. For starters, they all elevate humans to god-like status urging us to take command of the universe around us, something no human can do. Disguised as accepting individual responsibility they go way beyond that to fool people into thinking humans have a capacity to do the impossible - to merely think something into existence. Only God, the Creator, has that ability. Years ago I had to learn that the hard way by devoting hours of reading and study to flush out the garage. Sadly, some of the most successful writers are making bank on the desperate people looking for answers that I believe reside in godly faith. I dive into the Kindle library to re-read some things and get the hamsters on the wheels in my brain running slightly faster. Mostly, I'm running with this thought expressed by a couple looking at houses. "I can see myself" doing this or that. Something they've not yet done, at least not in any of these spaces that sparked their imaginations. Inserting ourselves into unknown circumstances, situations or places. We do it every time we plan a vacation to a place we've never been before. We do when we look at a new place to live. We do it when we fall in love. We do it when we go car shopping. We imagine. It's more than imaging though - it's envisioning ourselves as already being in that situation. The more we think about it the more clearly we see ourselves in that situation. The more real it feels and if we want it badly enough...the more we see ourselves there - in a future we want. That doesn't mean it will become reality, but there seems to be physical evidence that the way our body responds to our envisioning is very similar to the way our body responds when it does become real. It raises the question, "Does our body know the difference between something we imagine and something we actually experience?" It can feel or seem very real because, in our minds, it is. And our body responds accordingly - as though it has already happened. The couple admiring the house has put themselves in that house mentally. I'd predict that the house that consumes their imagination the most is the house they'll buy. It became the most real in their imaginations so they marshaled their resources to make it a reality. That feeling they had while first looking at will be replicated when they buy it and move in. It won't likely last because these things give way to new aspirations, dreams, and desires.