Living in the Present

12:34 PM (of Thursday, August 29th 2024)

Today is Wednesday, August 28th, 2024. Although it seemed like nothing happened today, I think today was still pretty good and better than a lot of other days.

For one thing, I didn't watch a single show today. When I ate, instead of putting up a random cartoon like usual, and this is a terrible habit I know, I put on one of the productivity lessons I had instead. For some reason I never thought of doing this before, I falsely believed I wouldn't be able to absorb the content as much if I ate and watched something educational at the same time.

The two lessons I watched were about having a pyramid of beliefs about life. There were 4 levels and I'm trying to recall it by memory. I know the two at the tip were relationships and calling, with relationship being the tip (meaning the least important, but still important). The next one close to the base is health. I don't remember what the base was. Maybe it was beliefs? I have to watch it again. Presence. It was Presence. So it goes from the most important to the least: Presence > Health > Calling > Relationships. That's the only thing I had to look up, I can summarize the rest through memory.

Presence is the most important because it's really what we only have. The past is gone and the future is uncertain and we may not even have a future at all, so it's important to be present. Everything else builds on top of that. This next part wasn't in the video, but I read about it elsewhere. People are always waiting. Waiting for a new degree, a new job, a new relationship, before starting their life. Even when they get that thing they still want to wait for the next thing. It's always waiting and being anxious for the future, instead of living life in the moment. Instead of waiting for the next thing, enjoy and experience today, because that's really all we have.

The next thing he talked about was health, and that's important because you can't really enjoy the present as much if you don't have it. The next is calling, it's basically a life purpose. The last is relationships, he put that last because he says your calling will decide the relationships that you have. If you aren't pursuing a calling, the relationships you do have will end up being random. Maybe things can still work out that way, but it's definitely better when you meet people who are on the same path as you.

The next lesson was about the shortness of life. He basically summarized Seneca's On the Shortness of Life essay. It's something I've already read or listened to before. The main ideas to take from it are that people who know the value of life do not waste even a single second of it, and that those who do waste a second of it don't know the value of life. I extend that to animals, in that those that know the value of conscious life don't take it away from other conscious beings. He also says that we all have enough time in the world to do anything with it.

I think there might have also been a part about being present, that we don't even know if we'll live to 50, yet people wait until they're older to experience life. So there were the lessons I learned today from watching like 10-15 minutes of educational footage related to productivity, and I guess life, while eating.

Well, anyway, what did I do today? This morning I went out for a walk. I took 8k steps again today, and I encountered a group of seniors walking in the forest. They were all very old, like 80s and 90s old, all walking very slowly, all with white hair and sagging skin with age spots. A few of them literally waved and smiled at me and made direct eye contact with me as I walked by. I was pretty taken aback by that gesture. Of course I kept walking forward and it probably looked like I didn't care at all nor was I affected by them, but I was.

I mean they were all probably from some retirement home nearby. That's the only explanation I can think of with why they were walking in such a group. This was around 10 AM so all the kids were in school and all the adults were at work. Only the seniors really roamed around. It was a pretty surreal experience encountering a group of elderly in the woods. I mean imagine some dark forest, dark because the trees blocked out the sun, and you're walking on the dirt path inside, and there's randomly a group of seniors you encounter. It felt surreal.

There's this one experience I've experienced in this forest only once in my entire life and I swear it really happened, but there's no recording of it, no photos, but it really happened. This took place in 2017, I don't remember the exact date. Maybe I wrote a journal entry for it? I probably did, but maybe I didn't, but this really happened. While walking in this forest, out in this small opening with some sun, there was this flock of black birds flying from the left side of the path to the right. Maybe they were crows or ravens, but I just remember hundreds if not thousands of birds, there were so many. They all just started to fly to the right as I approached, and as I got closer they all started flying to the right. So the experience was I was surrounded on all sides, above me, around me, everywhere, by birds flying to the right. Literally everywhere.

I have no proof of it or anything, it's just a memory. I remember exactly where it took place. There were other witnesses of the event too at the time, but I don't know any of them. They were just random walkers as well. They didn't get to experience it since they were behind me, they saw me engulfed in the birds, but they had already flown by as they got to the spot where I was. I did have a smartphone at the time and I was literally thinking of recording it as I walked by, but it just happened so fast, and now that event is 7 years ago.

Another experience I had was in these other woods back in high school. I was walking with a friend. We walked up to this random doe at a small stream taking a drink. We didn't even see this other deer, as he appeared out of nowhere and was inches away from ramming his antlers to my face. He was across the stream, and looked defensive. My friend and I were both startled because we didn't see this other deer, I think he was there the whole time, just blending in with the whole environment. We walked away and I am glad my face and body weren't brutalized.

There was also a skunk I encountered at night near my old apartment back in 2015. I was talking on the phone with a girl, back then I messaged and called a lot of random girls. We'd chat a lot and talked on the phone. They were all online and I never met up with any of them, but I had many I could call up at any time. I'd walk home from work sometimes, and it could be really late, like 9 PM late. So yeah I talked with someone most of the time.

Anyway, I mention that because I knew the skunk heard me approaching because I was talking so loudly in the dark. I didn't even see them until I turned the corner, but they already had their tail and butt aimed up at me, if I had continued walking closer they would have sprayed me. Luckily I revealed a shocked expression, which I think animals can pick up on, and then avoided them. I still had to go near them to pass them because they were in the path, but they were to one side, and I went on the other.

I think animals can obviously perceive expressions just like we can. Pretty much every animal has eyes, ears, a nose, a mouth. We all basically have the same exact biologies, a spine, a brain, lungs, heart, butt, sex organs, four appendages, a head, body, and so on. Our bodies are built pretty similarly, excluding bugs and insects and other creatures that aren't as similar.

We all know what the brain does, what a mouth does, what an eye does, and so on, and it's all the same between every animal. Animals can also use expressions, all of them, even fish. I have kept goldfish before and they show expressions. Most people wouldn't be able to tell due to their own ego blocking them, because they put humans above other creatures and are fine with torturing and killing them (they eat them every day), and because fish's faces are less expressive and less developed. However I've had many interactions with my goldfish, I could share stories but I am pretty sleepy, and they displayed different emotions and expressions.

When I got home, I worked. My dad and I went to Naked Lunch, a vegan restaurant, and got food there, which I ate while watching the educational life video like I posted above. Later, I taught my dad about ChatGPT and got him to download it on his phone. He had never used it before. I also taught him how to make music with AI.

At night, I watched Peter Pan from 1953. I saw this movie as a kid and I can't believe it's over 70 years old. I thought this film came out in the 80s or 90s, not in the early 1950s. That's crazy.

Anyway, yeah, I am extremely sleepy now. So that was my day today.