Insomnia #1 - Now-ness

Over the last few weeks I have not been sleeping well. In fact, I have hardly been sleeping at all.

I am used to difficult sleep patterns due to my constant travel and I am a light sleeper, but in the last few weeks my lack of sleep has been pretty acute.

I think there have been a number of contributory factors – pain (my shoulder), stress (work + life) and the influence of heavy anaesthetic for surgery which messed up my schedules totally – all in addition to the “had a bad day, got things on my mind, shouldn’t have had that cup of coffee” phenomenon that is more usual.

One of the good things about insomnia is that by definition you have a little more time on your hands.

This time allows you to think, to reflect, to consider and also more importantly perhaps to simply absorb, to get used to things or make things part of you. Something which ordinary time passing does anyway – but with insomnia ordinary time is accelerated slightly through having more hours awake.

It also gives you the chance to catch up comfortably with other insomniacs without the deadlines of appointments, work, etc. Nighttime is free time for everyone - although most people choose to use this time for sleeping – so as long as your insomniac friends are in the same time zone then conversation is very relaxed.

Several conversations I have had over the last few weeks, combined with my own experiences have led me to focus on thinking about the idea of “Now”. The present. This ephemeral, yet timeless state of being we all exist in but surprisingly few choose to live in . . .

We usually segment our lives into three time parts and spend, frankly, an enormous amount of time on two without spending nearly enough time on the third part. Those parts are our “past” which we usually characterize as our experience and the “future” which we usually characterize as our dreams, our goals, our ambitions. We think that our past prepares us for our future, somehow even decides our future.

We think of past and future, experience and dreams, as good things. Positive, helpful things. We spend hours, days, weeks actively engaged in two activities which I am going to argue are ultimately pointless, but more than this, are damaging.  We all too rarely stop to consider, let alone LIVE, the part that is sandwiched in the middle. The present. The “now”.

Reflection & projection. Considering the past, planning the future. We do it in our work – where we call it reviewing and planning – and we do it in our personal lives. Almost all the time.

As a result we miss almost entirely the opportunity of the present. Because the present is a constant dynamic – indeed it is almost an abstract concept – it has the possibility of eternity. IF we can find a way to live in the present more completely, I believe we can live more happily.

Broadly speaking our obsession as people with the past and the future, on reflection and projection follows two main paths – both equally unhelpful and dangerous. One path is the path of negativity and the other of positivity. Let me explain . . .

Negativity is easier for most of us to understand. Consideration of the past in terms of negative reflection is usually described as “regret”. The mistakes we made, the choices that turned out badly, the things we wish now – with the benefit of hindsight – to have done differently.  Except hindsight is a deception. A sleight of hand.

“If I’d known then what I know now, then I wouldn’t have done X”.  In other words, if someone could have told me the future, I would have had better information to make my choices. . . But of course no-one can tell the future.

Hindsight – or the ability to see looking back – is a psychological game we play with ourselves to try and prepare for the future. Looking back is in fact looking forward. Trying to desperately find something in the past that can predict the future that we are all so obsessed with. But it cannot.

Why do we obsess with looking back and reflecting on our regrets? Because we are afraid, often terrified, of the future. Our nature as humans is that we want everything to be wonderful and we are terrified that it might not be. So we spend an inordinate amount of time trying to control, influence and predict what we cannot. The future.

We make our choices in life and then we live with them. The ones we don’t like we can choose to see as mistakes and regret them OR we can choose to see them as steps in a progression which is as integral a part of us and our identity and states as the DNA which we are born with.

While I am not saying that we should never look back and consider our actions – we should – I am saying that we should not spend too much time in this or attach too much importance.

Mostly because we will find in our future fearing logic, that we have made millions of errors. And our regret will start to punish us with melancholy and increased fear for the future until the point we become totally depressed and totally paralyzed in the face of tomorrow, unable to make any decision in case it is a “bad one” and so spoils our plans for the future.

Instead I would advocate that we reflect on our mistakes in the following ways:

1. Mistakes are permanent. And once made are as irreversible as ink on paper. (There is a Buddhist parable that I read years ago that seeks to explain karma - A man wakes in the night, takes his pen and writes a letter. Later he decides he is not happy with the letter and takes the paper and puts it in the flame of the candle. The paper is burned and the letter is no more. But while the physical evidence of the letter is no more, this does not actually remove the existence of the letter. It was written. Paper and ink were used. It occurred in time. It therefore exists and can never be unwritten. So it is with mistakes.). So once we accept the mistake, our regret is redundant. Regretting something cannot undo it. It will not make it disappear. And it will not prevent it from happening again necessarily – another naïve idea that we hold. That focusing on our mistakes and regretting them will somehow magically prevent us from making them again. It won’t. (Not that there are not ways of avoiding mistakes in the future – there are, but I will come to that later).
2. Mistakes are human. To make a mistake, a “bad” choice, to screw something up is not a weakness that somehow causes us to fail in our bid for humanity and life. Conversely, it is something that qualifies us for humanity and life. We would not be human or have any quality of life if we did not make mistakes. It is not something we should punish ourselves for, but something we should embrace as vital and necessary for our continued happiness. Our mistakes expand our experience and grow us just as much -  and sometimes more – than our other learnings. They sometimes leave us with pain or unhappiness, but without pain or unhappiness, how would we know what comfort and happiness feel like?
3. Mistakes are who we are. They define us, shape us, make us who we are. Instead of regretting our mistakes we should recognize that at any given second or fragment of time in the present, we are there and who we are in part (often large part) because our mistakes brought us there and made us who we are. Now –before anyone says, “yes, but my life is unhappy, and I do not want to be this person now in the present and it is because of my mistakes I am”, let me clarify that unhappiness in the present is only there due to the inability or failure to actually live in the present and the now.

People who are unhappy live not in the present – they are absent from their lives because they are living in the past and the future.

The American author and playwright Fulton Oursler wrote:

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.”

The past and future steal from us. Our obsession with them takes away our present. And – by default and definition – we are actually only alive in the present. We cannot be alive in the past because it has gone and we cannot be alive in the future because it is yet to happen. So if we are absent from the present because of this obsession, then we are not alive. Or at least not living.

It is not just “reflection” and the consideration of the past that can confuse us, and steal from our present, our now. The future is equally problematic when we end up obsessed with “projection”.

It is something of a natural condition to be afraid of the future. To fear it. After all what is more normal than fearing the unknown. And the future is the one true and complete unknown for all of us. Worse, the only thing we as humans know about the future is that we are going to die at some point. So – pretty clear why it might be scary. We have no clue what’s there and it will end in death.

When looking at our negative approach to our existence in time we can see how focusing on our past causes pain and detracts from the only time we are alive – the present. We can also see why this drives us to additional fear for the future.

This additional fear is built on the premise that “If I made so many mistakes in the past, caused so much pain and unhappiness for myself, then if I don’t find out why and stop this from happening again then I will make mistakes like these in the future and my life will never be happy. And time is running out for I will die in the future and who knows when...”

We have all had that thought in some degree or another at some point. This terror is common – and particularly common to people who have lost the ability to live in the present. They are truly crucified between regret for the past and fear for the future as Oursler wrote. But we say that history doesn’t repeat itself. So why would our future be a repeat of our past? Just because we fear that it might be doesn’t mean that it will.

Indeed, if we accept that our mistakes are not to be regretted but to be seen as steps in a progression that makes us who we are in the present (see above), then we can probably – at least logically – expect that process to continue in the future. So instead of constant repetition of the past, we can enjoy growth and development.

We project far too much of our past on the future than we should. I think one reason is that given the choice of complete unknown or something, however regret laden it might be, we think that something is more concrete and that we can somehow work on it and create some predictability and hope that will help us approach the future more comfortably.  

This is, however, a false notion. The future remains always unknown – no matter what we try to project on to it. Positive or negative. We cannot control, predict or shape our future any more than we can eradicate or undo the mistakes we have made in the past (which again, I argue, are not mistakes and not worthy of regret. They were just choices which we made for good enough reasons at the time. AND those choices led us to “now”.)

Reflection and projection are not confined only to the negative.  We also reflect and project in what we think is a positive way about both the past and the future. Our happy memories and our dreams for the future. They are good, wholesome and make us feel warm and happy.

Except they are as equally unhelpful, painful and dangerous as our regrets and fears . . .

Our happy memories are no different from our memories of our mistakes. Indeed while we “over” regret our mistakes, we tend to “over” celebrate and nurture our happy memories. Like mistakes, those things we did that brought us happiness and joy cannot be eradicated or undone - they are permanent. But also like mistakes they are no predictor for the future. They have led us – together with our mistakes – to where we are now. In the present.

But if we believe our memories of past happiness are going to somehow mitigate the fear of the future then we are deceiving ourselves. Because the moment that this does not happen – and it cannot logically happen – our past memories of happiness will slowly come to be seen as mistakes and the cause of regret which will in turn burden us with greater fear for the future.

The same is true of positive projections in the future – our so called “dreams”, “goals”, “ambitions” . . .

I was asked recently by someone to share what my dream life would be. I was unable to answer. I made some attempts at describing how I would live – values, beliefs etc – but I was unable to easily answer “what” specifically would be my “dream life”. The only thing I could think of was what is lacking to me in the present. What do I want in my life - now.

Contrast with a few years ago when I had plans and goals and dreams galore. Timetables, specific milestones, achievements, benchmarks, directions and so on. I used to project into the future and create a whole life of results, progress, and destinations. Except I started noticing that almost nothing turned out according to plan. Nothing worked out personally or professionally. Indeed some things happened that were so “off plan” that it would have been scarcely imaginable to me that these things could happen when I had been making those plans . . .

Of course I spent quite a bit of time looking back and reflecting on my plans and dreams and finding that this difference between what had happened and what I planned or dreamed for myself was huge. I concluded that I must have made mistakes if my plans had failed – and it was of course easy to find the mistakes. Anything that took me away from the plan was a bad decision. Anything that ended up with me being unhappy in the past was a bad decision or a mistake. It became very easy to build a large catalogue of mistakes and analyses to go with them that would form my encyclopedia of regret. And I punished myself for this by setting stricter and stricter directions and guidelines for the future. If my laxness and lack of discipline, thought and analysis in the past had caused my mistakes, then my discipline, focus and effort in the future would ensure this would not happen again. I re-cast my dreams with more specificity and rules, more direction and guidelines. I would achieve my plans, I thought. I just needed to be more sensible, tougher on myself and it would all come true.

Well you don’t need to read this to know that of course that didn’t happen. Life continued to unfold in ways that could never be predicted. Some brought happiness, some brought sadness and all took me further and further away from the plan and the dreams I had made. My discipline and toughness on myself only caused me more distress to add to the building regret, and the increasing desperation of finding a solution to the future. Finding a way to ensure my plans came true.

I don’t remember when or even if I had an epiphany on this subject – perhaps it was in the period after my divorce – but I came to the conclusion that if I didn’t want my plans to fail, I should examine again why they failed and work from there.

I discovered that the reason why my dreams never came true as I had imagined them and my plans never worked out as I wanted was not because I made mistakes. It was simply because my plans could never work and my dreams could never come true for the simple reason that they were built on things in the future that were unknown and the further the plan or the dream reached into the future, the further it was destined for failure.

While this discovery was exciting it was also worrying at the same time. What will I do if all my plans are destined to failure? If all the specific things I have dreamed of are in fact subject to so many unknown variables that they too cannot succeed? And of course all plans and dreams are vulnerable to failure when any part of them relies on the unknown - and I am yet to see a dream or plan for life which doesn't . . . 

So – I decided to stop planning and stop dreaming. At first it was a question of simply scaling down my plans in terms of specifics and timescale. I made plans for a much shorter period of time (I think this comes naturally with age by the way although logic can provide the method for younger people) and I was much less rigid about the specifics of those plans.

As time passes I have very few dreams and plans of any real specificity. I allow myself to speculate on the future occasionally – it is very hard not to - but now I try to live in the present as much as I can. And that means accepting that things could go this way, or they could go that way. By being closer to myself and having a better relationship with my self - I can roll with life. I’ll deal with what I need to deal with when it comes and not before.

For example: I was recently given some positive future looking news about my professional life. It was nice to hear. But I refused to get very excited about it precisely because it is in the future. Friends and loved ones on the other hand got very excited and some even began talking around the possible future development as though it had happened already. I know that it could happen, but I also know that it could not happen. Indeed I know that I might make it not happen, just as much as someone else might make it happen for me. My point being, I took the “now” part of the news – which made me feel good. It made me feel positive and recognized. I left the future part of the news for the future.

The same thing applies to the question I was asked about my dreams – my specific dreams for my life in the future. All I could answer was what I want / need / am missing now. It was a very simple thing that I answered. Very clear and understandable – because it is now. It is not built on the assumptions about a future we cannot know nor the fear of a future decided by our past. It is built on who I am and what I want now. Now. Now. Now.

It is not easy to live in the Now. First it is hard to detach from the habits of reflection and projection. Second it is hard to live outside the structure that these give us – for they do give us structure. Third it requires us to be comfortable with ourselves – for in the Now we are very present and connected to ourselves. And that means trusting ourselves – a lot. That’s hard to do in the beginning and is foreign for many people, but you have to ask:

“Do I dare

Disturb the universe?”

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock – T.S. Eliot

Prufrock is the ultimate example of someone who has exiled himself from “now” and only lives in the past and future – trapped and denied life. This is the true sadness, indeed tragedy, of Prufrock – the absence of now. Indeed the “women who come and go, talking of Michelangelo” are the only evidence of “now” in the poem and they are the contrast to Prufrock and his thoughts. They are living, Prufrock is not.

“Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”

Terrorized by fear of the future he is paralyzed from making decisions, and ends up using time as his way of avoiding them . . .and life.

“In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse”

No-one needs to be a Prufrock  - they simply need to choose to live in the “Now”.

[And you who are reading this and know these words, you are not Prufrock either. You never were – you were just frightened you could become him. You will not wear the bottom of your trousers rolled. One of the reasons I am here is to show you that. As you have slowly begun to realize . . ]

We need to be able to accept pain and happiness on equal terms. To feel them and see where they take us –without caving into the temptation to reflect or project. Trust yourself – and the reason we should trust ourselves is because we are the most authentic true individuals in our lives. Accepting that truth is a leap – but once taken life changes quickly afterwards. Not without bumps in the road ahead of course, but no walls, fences or mountains any more . . .

When we are sad we tend to want to find the reason, analyze it, and then devise a way to avoid it in the future. We then look to what the future will be like when we do this and it makes us hopeful as we project a desired happiness. Then we create our plan. We fear it may not come true though because the past was sad, therefore so much the future.

When we are happy we want to find the reason, analyze it and then devise a way to sustain it in the future. We then look to what the future will be like when we do this and it makes us hopeful as we project our desired happiness. Then we create our plan. When it starts to unravel we start to reflect and see all our once projected decisions and dreams as mistakes and we begin the cycle of regret.

When we live in the now we focus on the present. We are where we are and there is no point in over analyzing why. In the past we took decisions, we made choices. There is happiness and there is pain. But we are here. We must accept it. We must dare to disturb the universe.

We must ask ourselves only a few questions - Am I happy, fulfilled, satisfied? If yes, then good. If not, then what is missing? What is missing now – not in the future. But find what you need now – don’t force the future on yourself now. It is pointless. And don’t wear the past around your neck like a noose – it is also useless.

If we can figure out how we want to live – values, beliefs – the what, where and with whom we will live will come to us. It will come in amazing ways.

Once many years ago - when I still had plans - I sat with friends in a tavern in Greece one winter’s evening and drank wine by the wood fire. One of the friends – who I did not know very well – began to ask me questions about my plans in life, my dreams. In those days I could answer this question immediately and I did. She then asked me the simplest of questions “And when you achieve that, what next?”. I had an answer for that too. And she repeated her question. This went on and on until I had not only run out of answers for a grossly projected future, but I had become terrified of the void that was my ultimate answer – “I don’t know”.

I had crashed into the reality of the future. I also took something else away from that evening. From all my planning and all my worrying about the future, as well as all my regret and despair at the mistakes of my past – I had been missing the point. I was not living now. Later that night I wept – mourning all the things I had let slip from my hands while looking back or looking ahead and not looking beside me. I wept at my foolishness and shortsightedness and eventually I wept with relief and joy that I had at least now realized the point. It’s all about now – because now is the only place and time we are alive. There is no future. And the past is gone, left us. There is only now. That was the point. So live it.

I still weep frequently  - something which some people find odd. I do try to do it privately - for other people’s sakes more than mine as it makes them uncomfortable – but I weep often. I weep from joy and from sadness – and I find weeping is a very “now” thing.

"Now" doesn’t mean we don’t have pain or joy – it just means we live through it rather than detach it for analysis through the prisms of reflection and projection.

So – this has been a long piece, but it’s been on my mind for a while and stimulated much by conversations and insomnia - a very “now” condition which doesn’t allow any past or future.

“Now” is hard, but it is rewarding.

Dare to disturb the universe. Embrace “Now-ness”.

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” Alexander Graham Bell – American inventor of the telephone