TLDR Most people only exist in two dimensions, the past or the future, subconsciously they want to escape the now. This post explains why we do this, it is an attempt to escape reality and the pain of the now. It then encourages you to try and live in the now or present. Unfortunately due to the way our mind works, we do not realize we are living in the past or future, hence we are zombies.

Look at all those shadows walking by, my conman acquaintance cackled. We were sitting on the patio of a sidewalk cafe in the business district watching people leave their offices to start their trek homeward. Why are they shadows, I asked? Because they only have two dimensions, his eyes sparkled knowing he had me hooked. Knowingly I entered his trap, I replied, but they look three-dimensional to me. No, these shadows only have two dimensions, the past or the future. Look at them scurrying along with the blank expressions on their faces, all they can think about is what they will do when they get home. Or maybe they are reliving what happened at work today. Either way, they are not living in the present, the now. They only live in the past or the future, never the now, if you never live in the now, you are part of the walking dead.

By living in the past or present we avoid reality

In my previous post, The pursuit of happiness myth which causes unhappiness, I stated that humans delude themselves to avoid the pain of facing reality. One of the ways we delude ourselves is by living in either the past or present. But this does not mean we shouldn't learn from the past or plan for the future. Living in the past can take two forms which are indirectly related to each other. The first form is where we express regrets about mistakes we made. If only I knew what I know now and then took a certain course of action, my life would be different. The second form of living in the past is living in what we might consider better times. We desire stability, the past is stable, since we already know what the outcome is. Knowing the outcome means our expectations have already been met. The past can either be a few hours ago or centuries ago when my conman acquaintance and I were observing business people heading home from work, many of them were saying to themselves if only I had turned down that assignment from my boss if only I had asked for a raise etc.

The living in the future deals with expectation also. Some of the wage slaves are thinking, I only have to put up with this job for another ten years. When I retire, I will tell my boss what I really think of him. Our brain is a simulation machine, we take past experiences and knowledge and use this simulation machine to predict future events. Our simulation machine allows us to experience and feel situations and events which have not even happened when used correctly, it is an extremely useful. Einstein used his simulation machine to imagine what would happen if he could travel on a tramcar at the speed of light and shine a flashlight in different directions. He then imagined all sorts of scenarios, what happens if he shines the flashlight forward, backward, there is another tramcar traveling at the speed of light with a person shining a flashlight. Using these simulations he developed the theory of relativity. When used correctly, our simulation machine is beneficial, incorrectly used, it is harmful.

Like all computers, our simulation machine produces erroneous simulations when we feed it inputs which are not based on reality. When I was a teenager in high school, there was a pretty girl in one of my classes. I had never talked to her, yet I gave her positive attributes which were a figment of my imagination. She was witty, intelligent, understanding, caring etc. Over the following weeks, using my simulation machine, I created a virtual reality or fantasy. In my fantasy we met, we then had amazing conversations. Later we ended up getting married, we had a house with a white picket fence and kids. Looking back, I can see I was living a fantasy and I wasted a great deal of time and effort on this fantasy. A couple months later, I ended up talking to her. Since I was a shy teenager or maybe because she didn't have any of the attributes which I am imagined, we never had the amazing conversations I imagined. I can not remember exactly what we said, all I remember was being disappointed. I would have saved a lot of time and disappointment if I had been living in the now.

Only by living in the now can you change the future

In the case of my teenage crush, I could have saved a lot of time and disappointment if I had decided a course of action in the present. This doesn't mean taking action in the present moment but setting a course of action in the present. So I could have said to myself, next time I see this pretty girl, I will go and talk to her. After I have decided a plan of action, I then put my plan of action onto my mental shelf to be acted upon when the appropriate time presented itself. Instead, I fed my simulation machine data which was based on incorrect assumptions. Then I allowed my simulation machine to create a fantasy, the more elaborate my fantasy became, the more I would be inclined to delay taking action. Subconsciously, I realized that my fantasy would be destroyed, wanting to avoid pain prevented me from taking action in the now.

A conman knows that he should provide people with justifications for what they did in the past, historic revision. Or he should cater to their desires or fantasies which will take place in the future. For the majority of people, most of the conman’s work has been done for them, since they are already living in either the past or future, he just needs to fill in the blanks. How do we avoid this trap?

In my post, Get rid of unrealistic social expectations to alleviate loneliness, the method I described works because I am forcing myself to live in the now. In my example, after deciding to take a course of action, in this case getting your ass out of the house, by concentrating on each individual step as I am doing it, forces me to live in the now. As I put one foot in front of the other, I concentrated on that action, not a future action or a previous action. This then eliminates expectation, it means I have become outcome independent. Expectation means I am living in the future.

If you fail to live in the now, you are part of what my conman acquaintance called the walking dead, a zombie, a person who is not self-aware or awake.

Only by experiencing the now can you be truly awake

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http://acrackletsthelightin.info/2017/03/03/Stop-being-two-dimensional-live-in-the-now/