The Continuous Present, III

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Notes on Smart Dust 4

The Continuous Present depicts the flow of movement from emotion to emotion over the course of a lifetime - or perhaps in a single day. The title stems from conversations I had with my dear friend and drumming Brother Michael Zack (RIP). Mike once told me of an architect he’d read of who said something akin to "There is no past and no future. The only thing that IS is the Continuous Present." I found it profound enough to write down in 1997 and have never forgotten it. Sadly, I've not found the architect who said these words in years of searching, though this concept is hardly new, perhaps best described in Hermann Hesse's novel "Siddhartha":

"That is it," said Siddhartha. "And when I learned that, I took a look at my life and saw that it too was a river, and the boy Siddhartha was separated from the man Siddhartha and from the graybeard Siddhartha only by shadows, not by anything real. And there was no past for Siddhartha's earlier births, and his death and his return to Brahma are without future. Nothing was, nothing will be; everything is, everything has essence, is present."

As I grow older, this sense of "present" becomes stronger in me every day. Perhaps it's only natural as we age. Perhaps it's an impending sense of freedom. Strap on your headphones, press play, close your eyes, and see if you can find it for yourself.