Pretty much anyone working on themselves and attaining a better attitude towards life and living has heard it: "You need to live in the moment!" or "Live in the now" or "There is no moment but the present."

TLDR: If you want control over your life, learn how to perceive past, present and future objectively and productively.

These fluffy feelgood-phrases also permeate a lot of TRP-space and I want to use this post to call it out for what it is: Fluffy, bluepill, vanilla, mainstream philosophy.

They barely scratch the surface of what is called "maladaptive time perspective".https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29694321/

People with maladaptive time perspectives are unable to productively relate the past, the present and the future to one another. They are usually stuck on a certain perspective of time. They might be dwelling on their ex. They might be living in an ever-hedonistic string of nows, constisting of porn, videogames and weed. Or they may be daydreaming about their future as shredded Chads plowing their way through rows and rows of women.

And while most people can spot and adress this problem as long as it is pronounced, they miss the underlying issue:

Inflexibility when percepting time. They simply can not put themselves in the shoes of their future, present or past self.

While it is true that, as the Buddha said, the past is just a memory and the future just a fantasy - both memory and fantasy are shaped by reality. And those who are able to connect the dots control their fate. Their lives feel like an unreal onslaught of fleeting feelings, out of their control, they themselves unable to do anything about it.

Being able to correctly perceive and productively perceive past and present events is one of the most critical abilities of your psyche - along with logic, critical thinking, creativity, frame and emotional intelligence.

So - how can one learn to build a productive relationship with past, present and future?

One way is meditation. Most styles of meditation focus on just breathing in the present moment. That is one way to learn how to deal with the present. But you can do the same thing with the past: Just pick a memory and repeatedly play the same 10 seconds over and over again. Or do the same with a future - maybe with a future worry: Visualize it, play it through time and time again until you reach calm.

Once your vision is no longer clouded by vapid emotions, you can dive further and further into each direction - connecting the dots along the way and letting the emotions pass by until you reach calm.

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juddshanks 5y ago

Yep a better way of explaining 'live in the moment' is 'give whatever you're doing your absolute focus.'

If you're lifting, give all your attention to that, if you're doing something important at work, give all your attention to that, and yes, if you're on the couch about to drink a beer or smash a pizza you might as well focus all your attention on enjoying that.

It doesn't give you a licence to make shitty decisions or fail to plan, but there's something to be said for reducing sensory inputs and letting your brain zero in on one thing at a time- in fact that will probably enhance your decision making

Just using the beer as an example, if you know its something which is objectively bad for you, but decide to give in and reward yourself, far better that you stop everything else, hell put your phone down and switch off the tv and really fucking enjoy that beer from start to finish. Quite apart from anything else if you do that you're far more likely to stop there rather than distractedly knock back 5 or 6 whilst watching a game.

oooKenshiooo 5y ago

That is exactly the point and what I meant by "productively relating towards time".

People throw advice around because it sounds good, not getting to the bottom of it.

Telling someone to live in the moment CAN be good advice, if he has a maladaptive perspective on it, and is constantly worried about the future and things out of his control.

The problem however is not ones perspective on time - but rather the inability to change that perspective.

So, picking up your beer analogy, being a mindful drinker is probably better than being an impulsive, distracted drinker.

But if that person has a maladaptive time perspective, he will still be stuck in the present, unable to think about the future (or what has led them towards drinking in the past). That person will still probably not develope their own agenda.

...which btw. is precisely the point of the whole mindfulness shtick to begin with. Most spiritual practices do not build agenda - they build non-agenda. Which is okay from a spiritual standpoint, but it is not exactly red pill.

N0WHER3_MAN 5y ago

Thank you. OP's trying to use one concept he barely understands to attack another concept he barely understands.

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DareyFathom 5y ago

I understand that "living in the moment" is intended to foster gratitude and focus on the active tasks. However, most Americans just take that as a source of justifying their immediate gratification.

oooKenshiooo 5y ago

Yes, that's exactly what happens when people throw advice around they don't understand.

"Just, like, live in the moment, maaan. Carpe diem 'n shit." *injectsheroineintohiseyeball*

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SKRedPill 5y ago

They are not in the moment as much as being in whatever their mind wants in the moment.

That's a critical failure.

tdfrantz 5y ago

Also a key, yet often hard to see, distinction

gotmilo11 5y ago

Maladaptive daydreaming is a curse from the devil

SKRedPill 5y ago

There is a story of a disciple who after hearing the master talk about God present in everything, came up with his own idea of how it worked.

Therefore when a rampaging elephant came his way, in all his glorious stupidity, he refused to listen to everyone warning him to get out of the way because in his logic, if God was in the elephant there was no need to run.

Well the elephant picked him up and threw him like a ragdoll and he ended up badly injured.

Later on the master asked him, "Why didn't you listen to the God inside all those people warning you to get out of the way you fool?"

Moral : A concept is a terrible imitation of reality. Reality is merciless at teaching truth.

gotmilo11 5y ago

I appreciate that. Someone told me in a previous post that "the world is going to eat me alive" Post like these are good warning to fucking man up for what's to come. Thanks!

hoopingblob 5y ago

An Italian author once said

"We walk in the present, look at the past and think about the future"

You still walk in the present and in order to walk you need to know how to walk (past) and you also need to know where you are heading (Future).

These things aren't seperate. They co exist and while you can plan for the future and look in the past you also should be mindful of what is happening now aswell. All of those things need to be done at the same time with moderation.

ConfidentActuator 5y ago

That's my general problem with mindfulness and "living in the moment". It's not a bad form of meditation but trying to impose it as a standard of living life for everybody just doesn't work. This is a bit jungian but probably the easiest way to explain - we have differently developed cognitive functions, for example Ni-dominant (introverted intuition) people live inherently more in the future than Si-dominant (introverted sensing) people. It's natural for their mind to operate like this and I'd argue even good, because it produces tangible results when that future finally come to pass.

PlentifulSea 5y ago

Yes but functions easily change over time, the younger you are. Your habits will shape your reality. Sure whether or not you're N or S dominant probably wont change, the balance easily can. From this we know that everyone has every function, and that you have to feed it.

I dealt with this in one way by whenever I catch myself daydreaming, I take myself out of it and try to be present. That's negative reinforcement on my N, and positive for my S.

SKRedPill 5y ago

There's a difference between being in the reality of now vs being inside whatever your mind keeps wanting in the moment.

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Pleasenodrugs 5y ago

This is the best post this sub has had in the last year hands down

oooKenshiooo 5y ago

Have you read my "insivble wars" series?

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Pleasenodrugs 5y ago

Woah I really needed to read that my man. Hit an inch I was having, thank you for that. Really one of those moments that was meant to happen. Have a good one

SKRedPill 5y ago

The key mistake I see people do is to think of present as just a moment in time. It isn't.

Try to recall any memory from your past? When do you recall it? Right now.

Write down a list of your top 3 goals for the year. When do you think of it. Right now.

The now is BIGGER than time, not a small slice of it.

So I'd say it's more about knowing that you are already ever present more than trying to fit into an artificial idea of present.

There's a difference between being in the reality of now vs being inside whatever your mind keeps wanting in the moment.

The mind only wants the small slice of time it is most comfortable with and tries to deny the rest. That is not reality.

Anything becomes a real experience only in this moment. Friday isn't going to come till Friday, but it's stupid to pretend that it will never come.

Ok you could die before Friday, but you'll never know till it hits, so what is not in your control, you give up trying to control that - it's a fool's errand.

You are the only constant present in all experiences. That is what we want to spot.

Past and future by themselves aren't a problem, but getting stuck in them while life flows on isn't healthy. The mind is rarely ever aligned honestly with the flow of life. Most of the time people don't use their mind as much as it uses them.

Also being present should not make you blind or passive to the fact that you're always doing a whole bunch of things that's going to shape the future, which will become a reality when it finally arrives. You are creating every moment whether you're aware of it or not. So you better wake up and create good.

You are supposed to use this tool to get more responsible, not become negligent. You should feel more alive than before. Anything less is not acceptable.

Also it's not good to discuss too much into the conceptual understanding of something vs the real experience of it - the more you do, the more the limits of conceptual ideas become apparent.

That's why whenever I mention it, I always include an exercise or a situation where you use it and see what happens. Here we aren't just supposed to believe. We're supposed to try it out, see what works and what doesn't, and fix holes in our understanding.

Concepts won't stand up to the reality test for too long.

If your concept failed the reality test, abandon it asap. It doesn't work. Get out of your head and back into reality. Eventually experience will teach you what it really is about.

masterpiece00 5y ago

Listen to time professor over here - Lay off the pot or meth dude, yeesh.

oooKenshiooo 5y ago

Professor time knows his shit.

Roto2esdios 5y ago

If I understand correctly what are you saying I think you refer at famous 'carpe diem' which I think has been misunderstood completely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpe\_diem

I believe that phrase is a Stoic one which is related to Buddhism, mindfulness and other religions.

Living the moment is NOT having sex, smoke, do drugs and whatnot to the fullest 24/7. It's to calm down yourself about foolish expectations, understand your feelings, cultivate yourself and act (or not) now in your best interest. Living the present moment without judgement or regret.

I did my final project about mindfulness in college and it works

redvelvet_oreo 5y ago

Like anything else context is everything.

I agree with your post that interpreting the past and future properly has its benefits and is essential.

Thinking of the past shows you what mistakes to not make again.

Thinking in the future you can plan ahead. Choose your next steps. Chart your course so to speak.

The problem most people face is that they get stuck in both of these realms. To much obsessing of the past and the future. Which leads to depression(past) and anxiety(future). This happens even more so now with the use of social media and the internet.

Learning how to be in the present is extremely imporant because this where most people fail. They cant focus because they cant stay in the present. They cannot achieve social happiness or any sort of seduction because they cant learn to be in the present. A person that is not in the present manifests them selves as unaligned, stifled, and just not authentic. You can never tell if a person is coming or going.

Learning to be in the present helped me tremendously. Its not bad advice at all it just thrown out there out of context most of the times without knowing what is the actual persons problem is.

One thing I would add besides meditation to help get into the present is:

Take action:

Read that book you said you were.

Approach that chick the moment you know you want to fuck her.

Get hands on on that instrument you kept saying you wanted to learn how to play.

Taking action stops your brain from going into over drive and fucking yourself from not doing things and overthinking/analyzing everything.

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oooKenshiooo 5y ago

While I get why people like that book, I can not bring myself to share that sentiment.

It just seems rather plain and basic and some of his observations about the mind, trauma and the pain body are plainly false.

In my opinion, this book is entry level spirituality at best.

And while it produces short term gains in a lot of people, it also produces more entrapment, because it enable people to be more efficient at "spiritual bypassing".

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oooKenshiooo 5y ago

I agree! As long as your road leads you to Rome...

As for the books - I am having a hard time narrowing it down. Is there any field / topic / problem you are especially interested in?

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oooKenshiooo 5y ago

"Thinking fast and slow" by Kahnemann is great for identifying faulty thinking.

"Frogs into princes" by NLP-Guru Richard Bandler is very interesting to read as it deals with the subconscious. I'd take it with a grain of salt, because a lot of NLPs benefits have been widely blown out of proportion.

Ludwig von Mises:
"The Theory of Money and Credit". A treaty on money and economy by one of the forefathers of libetarianism.
"Theory and History" / "Human Action" A pretty interesting read on how human action and interaction relates to economics.

"The Irreducible Mind" by Edward F. Kelly. A pretty thick read on human consciousness and it's capabilities. Contains interesting topics, such as hypnosis, psychedelics, near death experiences and the like.

"Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter. I can not really explain what this book is about, because I do not understand it entirely. But it draws some very interesting connections between math, music, art, logic and artificial intelligence.

thop89 5y ago

Bro, you can skip Mises; just get some scientific textbooks / critical (!) introductions on economics and history of economic theory and you will learn hundred times more about economics than through Mises' dated and elongated ramblings. I got Mises book on money and credit plus his "Nationalökonomie" (-> "Human Action") and that shit was hell.

Get "Capitalism. Competition, Conflict, Crises" by Anwar Shaikh (2019, Oxford University Press). That book (1000 pages) is TOP NOTCH! From Amazon:

"Orthodox economics operates within a hypothesized world of perfect competition in which perfect consumers and firms act to bring about supposedly optimal outcomes. The discrepancies between this model and the reality it claims to address are then attributed to particular imperfections in reality itself. In Capitalism, Shaikh's approach demonstrates that most of the central propositions of economic analysis can be derived without any reference to standard devices such as hyperrationality, optimization, perfect competition, perfect information, representative agents, or so-called rational expectations. In every case, Shaikh's innovative theory is applied to modern empirical patterns and contrasted with neoclassical, Keynesian, and Post-Keynesian approaches to the same issues. Shaikh's object of analysis is the economics of capitalism, and he explores the subject in this expansive light. This is how the classical economists, as well as Keynes and Kalecki, approached the issue. Anyone interested in capitalism and economics in general can gain a wealth of knowledge from this ground-breaking text."

"An amazing feat. Anwar Shaikh's Capitalism covers exchange, production, costs, competition, money, macro-dynamics, profit, wages and trade, with theory, history and evidence complete. Deeply erudite and beautifully written, it is at once a stunning renovation of classical and Keynesian economics and a relentless demolition of sophistries. A book to savor and to teach; there hasn't one like it for 150 years." -- James K. Galbraith, author of The End of Normal and of Inequality: What Everyone Needs to Know

oooKenshiooo 5y ago

The End of Normal and of Inequalit

Have you read Mises in German? Because I found hime quite clear and concise.

I have added Shaikh to my reading list, looking forward to it!

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FuckJanitors 5y ago

We trust that time is linear. That it proceeds eternally, uniformly. Into infinity.

But the distinction between past, present and future is nothing but an illusion. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are not consecutive, they are connected in a never-ending circle.

Everything is connected.