Stoic Meditation #15 - How's Your Coffee?
"A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past." - Eric Hoffer
"I will never be happy until I own that boat," thought Joe as he looked upon the magnificent yacht from his seat at the waterfront cafe, his coffee getting cold.
We spend an inordinate amount of our precious time mingling with phantoms from either the past or the future. They have been or they might be. They can't be changed or they can't be certain. We fret over what's been lost or we desire what we don't have, all while being dismissive of what we do have now. The present moment is judged according to comparisons that are as arbitrary as they are empty.
"Whatever falls into our possession and knowledge fails to bring satisfaction; we go panting after things unknown and things to come, because the things that are present are never enough. It is not, in my view, that they lack what it takes to satisfy us, but rather that we hold them in an unhealthy and immoderate grip."
Montaigne, Of a Saying of Caesar (1580)
Perhaps we're distracted by a drive for status defined by money, a job title, expensive things, or signaled virtue.
"No man in public life thinks of the many whom he has surpassed; he thinks rather of those by whom he is surpassed. And these men find it less pleasing to see many behind them than annoying to see anyone ahead of them. That is the trouble with every sort of ambition; it does not look back."
Seneca, Epistles 73.3
But aspirations based on status don't point the way to happiness or peace of mind. There is a Buddhist expression, "Don't mistake the finger for the moon." And for status seekers markers like money, job title, expensive cars, etc. aren't pointing to the moon at all. As Schopenhauer observes:
"Most men set the utmost value precisely on what other people think, and are more concerned about it than about what goes on in their own consciousness, which is the thing most immediately and directly present to them. They reverse the natural order – regarding the opinions of others as real existence and their own consciousness as something shadowy; making the derivative and secondary into the principal, and considering the picture they present to the world of more importance than their own selves. By thus trying to get a direct and immediate result out of what has no really direct or immediate existence, they fall into the kind of folly which is called vanity – the appropriate term for that which has no solid or intrinsic value."
Schopenhauer, The Wisdom of Life (1851)
Our own consciousness is the moon and the opinions or judgments of others are the fingers that more often than not are pointing toward misery and away from happiness and peace of mind. The essence of life can only be experienced in the here and now, free from the pull of other people's opinions and judgments.
"We should not overlook even common and ordinary things, but take some account of them and be grateful that we are alive and well and look upon the sun … These things when they are present will afford us greater tranquility of mind, if we but imagine them to be absent, and remind ourselves often how desirable is health to the sick, and peace to those at war, and, to an unknown stranger in so great a city, the acquisition of reputation and friends; and how painful it is to be deprived of these things when we have once had them. For it will not then be the case that we find each one of these important and valuable only when it has been lost, but worthless while securely held."
Plutarch, On Tranquility of Mind 9 (469e–f)
Seems straightforward enough. Except the present moment often fails to satisfy us. We want the car or job or vacation and once it's in our possession it becomes ordinary, mundane, even resented as we begin to compare it to the next desired thing.
"Think about individuals; consider men in general; there is not one whose life is not focused on tomorrow. What harm is there in that, you ask? Infinite harm. They are not really living. They are about to live."
Seneca, Epistles 45.12–13
"The man who is only happy with present things sets narrow limits to his enjoyment. Both the future and the past can delight us – one in anticipation, the other in memory – but one is uncertain and may not happen, while the other cannot fail to have been. What madness it is, therefore, to lose our grip on that which is the surest thing of all!"
Seneca, Epistles 99.5
If you can't be present with and enjoy the narrow limits of a simple cup of coffee for a brief moment, how can you ever be present enough to enjoy a yacht? Insist on at least one small slice retaken from your "about to live" efforts today and devote that slice to living fully in the moment.
"Present time is very short – so short, indeed, that for some it seems not to exist. It is always in motion, it flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it arrives."
Seneca, On the Shortness of Life 10.6
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