As promised, Matthew Temple, the deep side:

In certain circles we talk a lot about living in the moment. But what does it actually mean? There must be as many definitions as there are people. It’s an elusive and simple concept. Here are some of my thoughts.

Being in the moment is about being aware—of yourself, of the world around you..and realizing they are one and the same.

Being aware of yourself can be a subtle act. Do I want to take a walk? Do I need to cum? Am I thirsty? Will a cigarette help me feel better? Will a drink?

Knowing these things about yourself—knowing them well and intimately—is part of living in the moment.

Being aware of what we call others is also part of being in the moment. If I am hiking, what is under my foot? What is over my head. Can I escape the tunnel of reaction-awareness and become more omni-aware? Can I become aware of things which seem at first to have no relevance to me? When I am speaking to someone, interacting with them, can I become aware of their body cues?—look at their lips, their posture, their manipulation of objects in our shared environment?

And can I become aware that she (the tree), she (the woman) are not separate from me? That we are pieces of the same, total organism?

I must be aware of everything..my self..my world..and realize that they are the same thing. (I may be inside the forest, but, also, the forest is inside me.)

In a sense, the only thing I can control is “myself”—what is contained within a bathtub. I can’t make the tree grow, I can’t make the woman kiss me. But to look at control in this way is too limited. For everything I do affects the world around me, so there is an influence—if not a control—that I exert on everything and everyone around me, and the reverse is true.

I am not even in control of my whole “self”—I do not control my stomach, my digestion. I do not control my subconscious. It is questionable, even, to apply the concept of control to that tiny little part of my brain that seems like “me.”

But there is no question that I influence myself and I influence the world around me—the environment, the people, the plants and animals.

This is a key concept of being in the moment. The moment consists of the influence and interaction of all that is close by me, all that is far away. The moment is not a static photograph. It is not a movie. It is an explosion, and it involves everything—that which you know, that which you do not know. Living in the moment is less like sailing a ship; it is more like dancing inside a bomb.

Everything influences everything. All that influence is the moment.

This is about living in the moment, not knowing about a moment.

This is the wonderful part.

Whether you are controlling it or not, whether it is part of what you can call, “me,” or whether you are essentially part of something too large to ever use that term, you are acting.

Whether you like it or not.

You have no choice.

That’s what living is. It’s being on the roller coaster that never stops moving. It’s the continuous skein of motion of your body and your mind and your thoughts and your words.

And you can act in a way that reflects awareness and the reality of the universal influence of everything, or you can act like a dud—that is, act in a way that is unaware of the world and its wild garden/fusion bomb of activity.

Act in a way that reflects awareness of everything you know (“self” and “others”) and in concert with the dynamism of the fire and the ocean and the hurricane that we live in and I think you will find you are living in the moment, at least by this particular definition.