#urban hell

Your Life a Sandcastle

There is a frequent assumption that recognizing the insignificance of one's personal story naturally makes the present moment precious. You're after a bad divorce and the only right thing to do is now. This seems to be logical.

There is there is, however, a big but. For many people, the present becomes meaningful because of memory and future orientation, not despite them. A grandmother holding her grandchild is not valuing a pure present moment detached from time. The moment is precious because it contains decades of memories and hopes. A scientist making a discovery values it because it connects to years of work and future possibilities. A lover values a conversation because of the shared history and anticipated future. Meaning is often distributed across time.

This is why when you read such assumptionyoufeel both attracted and unconvinced. It is identifying a real problem. Human beings can become trapped by endless striving, endless fear, endless attachment. But to move toward a radical reduction of value is not a solution. Do not ask how to discover that life amounts to nothing to value the present moment. Be more interested in how to build better maps, models of reality, so that life becomes less distorted and less unnecessarily painful. That is a different project altogether. The Buddhist project says, "Reduce identification until nothing matters." The other says, "Improve understanding so that what matters becomes clearer."

Those approaches may sometimes overlap, but they are not the same. Spiritual gurus are trying to free people from the tyranny of their narratives by showing that many of their cherished values are fragile constructions. And they do it for big reason. The question they leave unanswered is why the recognition of fragility should lead to the conclusion that those values are worthless. A sandcastle disappears with the tide. That does not prove it had no value while it stood. Likewise, a human life may be temporary, contingent, and constructed, yet still contain love, learning, beauty, curiosity, competence, and meaning. The fact that these things do not last forever does not automatically reduce them to nothing.

Shatila refugee camp for Palestinians, Beirut, Lebanon.