The Collapse of Time.
When I was a teenager in England, we used to play a game called “Smelling the Roses”. It sounds innocuous enough, until you discover that the goal is to have as much of your body as you feel comfortable with hanging outside of a moving car.
My standard protocol for this game was to have everything but one hand and half of a foot inside the vehicle. My record was 104 miles per hour.
It was dangerous, it was reckless, and it was wonderful.
Because in that moment, with the wind trying to blow your lungs apart, every breath was a struggle. In that moment, you knew that one single mistake, or a lapse in concentration could leave you dead, or wishing that you were.
I didn’t do it for the notoriety, or to prove a point. I used to do it because in that moment, when I was closer to death than I had any business being…
Time collapsed into now.
In that moment, there is no past, there is no future. The sensory overload forces every part of your brain into processing this point in time, so that now is all there is.
All the hurt from the past, all the hope for the future just fades away into an incredible clarity of thought, feeling and spirit that is only now, and yet now also gives you an amazing perspective of eternity, of your past, of your future.
It all melds into one, and yet expands into everything.
I found the collapse of time again when I jumped out of an aircraft at 13,000 feet, strapped to a man I’d known for about 30 minutes. The sensation of falling at over 120 miles an hour brought me again into a collapsed now.
I can only describe it as the most spiritual experience of my life, feeling like I was at once separated and connected to every moment, every person, everywhere. Every sensation was alive, heightened, enhanced and connected, and all happening now, now and most of all, now.
If that sounds crazy, I understand. I think you really have to try it sometime to understand what I mean.
So many of us live our lives trapped in the past, or fearful of the future. In our desire to avoid the judgment of others, we trade the possibility of now for the regret of tomorrow. If we live outside of now, we never fully understand the joy and the wonder that this moment, and this one, and this one, have to offer.
If you truly wish to experience life in every breath, you have to make every breath count.
Which means you have to collapse your time into now. Through meditation, through experiences, through excitement and through intention. Once you find your way into now, you’ll see the future and the past as one eternal possibility, and then make your decisions based not on what could be, but on what is.
When you learn time, time becomes your healer, your guide and your friend.
So today, I invite you to try to live in the moment for at least a few minutes, and see how it changes you. You don’t have to jump for it, or risk your life for it. All you have to do is decide that you will live this moment intentionally, focusing not on what was, or what will be, but solely on what is right in front of you.
As the teacher Ram Dass once said, “Be here, Now”.
And you’ll find that now holds all the secrets, excitement, power and wonder that you’ll ever need.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings