014 | A Morning Thought

Friends with The Present Moment

“I enjoy tremendously every single moment of my life because death, all the time, is very close watching me and death might catch me. And every five minutes death don’t catch me, I enjoy tremendously.” - Salvador Dali

I don’t often think about death in the the sense of legitimately dying. In my eyes, it doesn’t appear to be a positive use of my time and the limited brain capacity I feel I have. I do, however, believe resolutely in tremendously enjoying every single moment of life, but not because death is closely watching and trying to catch me - this would make it far too easy to slip into a nihilistic frame of mind. Instead of tremendously enjoying every five minutes because death did not catch me, I enjoy these moments because they are those where I had an opportunity to live. I have found myself in an extremely fortunate position where my work allows for exploration of the world, and I attempt to return this favor life has granted me by actively living every moment of it. The good, the bad, the positive, the negative.

Make the present moment your friend. Not your enemy. Surrender to the is-ness of the moment.

Notes from an Eckhart Tolle lecture, taken and sent to me by one of the most profound minds I have come to know. Friends, for me, are everywhere. I make new ones everyday - whether or not they themselves believe that as well I don’t know, and often times simply never will. But, if I meet you, and we share a moment in the present, a moment in which we were both here and now, where names and contact via a handshake or a hug were exchanged, you are now my friend, and I will never forget you, that moment, your name, or that handshake.

I am currently in transit back to NYC, writing on the plane, listening to Isabella’s perfectly curated Unwind playlist, and recounting the many new friends I made over the last few days in Belgium. My Uber driver Amine, from Algeria, whose son is a chef at a popular restaurant in the city and who taught me that Antwerp is the most culturally diverse city in the world, representing more nationalities than any other (unverified, but I’ve chosen to believe it). The group of four 10 year olds who approached me under a bridge asking if I was the news, the ringleader of which was Ade, whom I offered to photograph and send over later on Instagram, though I am not quite sure he understands the concept of film photography yet. My friend Ali, short for a name too complex and beautiful for my pronunciation skills, from Morocco, who taught me the special details of the Antwerp port at which we were filming. My friend Yara, a tattoo artist native to the city, immensely talented with a love for Pixar animations and whose boyfriend tours the world DJing. My friend Kim, a van man for life, whose eclectic music taste fueled the final moments of our trip on the Mexicoburg bridge. These are just to name a few. Friends I may never see again, but friends nonetheless.

In making the present moment your friend, so too does this ripple upon the humanity around you. There are so many unique and remarkable souls in this world, and it would be a shame to not attempt to connect with them all, if even through just a smile. It’s not about race, religion, political affiliation or gender. It’s about this thing called life. And it’s also about this thing called love. Another note sent to me from the aforementioned Tolle talk,

Love is the inherent beingness beyond the personality.

In recognizing the being in each of us, everything else dissipates, melting away to a place of insignificance, unsubstantial in its relevance to the present moment, and the power of now. Our world is going through hardship, it always has, is, and will be. Not just the collective, but individuals as well. The easy way out is to make enemies out of the ensemble of beings, the individuals and spirits directly inflicting pain, and yourself. I have vast experience in the realm of making an enemy out of oneself, going to war with my mind and body, an inconclusive battle once commenced. Existing not are two sides to the fight as in typical warfare - there is no opposition to raise the white flag. Why? Well, because it’s just you, simply you, the one and only warrior. I hesitate to ever propose an answer to any of my questions because realistically I have no idea what I’m doing or what is going on. In response here, however, I would look to this notion of surrendering to the is-ness of the moment. Through surrender comes acceptance, and in acceptance arrises peace. Some of us are better at this process than others, but it is a learned skill, not given. Only by consistently patient practice and recognition of these moments in which control is stolen, or lost, can there emerge an opportunity to surrender, actively and willingly. The manifestation of this concept is variable. For one it may tender itself in a business context, another in the creative process of producing art, and another in a health struggle. For me, it was the latter.

At a pivotal period in the earlier stage of the short life I’ve lived, I was faced with what, at the time, felt like a devastating blow to the command I once thought I had over my life. All of a sudden, without warning, no longer could I do the things I loved. Because of the experience I was going through, and the actions taken to remedy that thereof, I lost myself physically, mentally, and socially. Side effects of medications made it impossible to recognize myself in the mirror, and consequently I hid from the world. The activities that had shaped the structure of my life were stripped from the daily routine. Instead of driving to tennis practice or walking the halls to my English class, my Dad and I were trekking for over an hour to the doctor’s office to spend four more hours with a needle in my arm. Control was nonexistent, and for a 14 year-old ignorant to the blessing in every curse, this was a difficult actuality to grasp. At times I found refuge on the golf course, a three hour segment of solitude where no one could see my puffy face from the prednisone or the random and awkward contortions I’d have to make to get the cramp out of my calf or bicep from the dehydration. Safe to say I did not surrender to the is-ness of the moment. It was instead my sole enemy.

I speak of this experience purely because of the gratitude I have for going through it. Without knowing, understanding, and feeling what it is like to be robbed of all control, I would not comprehend the virtue in surrender that I do now. It seems as though a majority of my thoughts and actions presently stem from the subconscious, but a subconscious that is trained from legitimate experience. I would hide not just physically, but emotionally from a lot of people during that period of my life. Talking to friends about feeling unwell would have made it real, and my biggest fear was facing that reality as the one I was living. And I know, from absolutely zero evidence except that of my own inclination, that anyone, anywhere, at any time could too be struggling, hence the responsibility I have vested in myself to make as many friends as possible, because it would have been cool if someone had done that for me. This is not to say it didn’t happen, but when it did, the souls were older than I, and in some odd way it felt like charity, and the very last thing I wanted was to be in need of charity.

I kind of just went off on quite the tangent there, but to bring it full circle, the preceding anecdote is a long winded explanation to provide the reason why I try to enjoy every moment tremendously, make it my friend, and surrender to the is-ness of it all - try is a key word here, I am not even close to perfect, and never will be. But I remember clearly what it was like when I refused to do so, and it was far too dark, facilitating far too grey of a cloud that overshadowed the wondrous life that this is. The future is incredibly uncertain right now, an uncertainty that is palpable, but I am not stressed. I trust in the process that has lead me to seat 31C on a Delta flight to JFK. And I trust the select few, in whom I have bestowed my love, to blindly traverse the unknown with me, guided by the utmost happiness and contentment because we are in it together, always in all ways.