The Importance of Now

                                       The Importance of Now

     Now...is "no" without the "w".  I admit, it's a play on letters but, in some sort of ironic way, there really is no "Now".  It exist only because there is a word for it.  By our usage of the word, we can hold time completely still, dwell on the circumstances involved in that hiatus, and see it as something we call a "Now".  Facing reality, there is only past and future, and the so-call present (now) is existing in name only.  At the instant we think of what is happening now, it is already in the past.  So we try to look ahead and we see it coming but the instant you think it has arrive...puff...it's already past.  This strange phenomenon is taking place even as we are reading this sentence. What we think of Now will not hold still for us, and since it really does not exist, why is it important?
    
       Because without Now, we would give up hope of ever accomplishing anything.  Without Now, we would just exist, never in the present, always in the future or in the past.  There will be no power in the universe, no razor's edge of time in our universe (with the exception of a black hole) that will stop and hold time still for us.  Every thing about us will ALWAYS be either in the future or in the past, constantly moving, never stopping,  traveling in a straight line toward infinity.  Everything seems pointless, disorganized, everything is in chaos, people's point of reference gone...unless we invented something that did not exist.  And that something is "NOW".  With now, we have a starting point, we can plan for the future, look back fondly at the past, be at peace with ourselves.  With this artificial construct we can create, organize resources, and have hope.  Yes, we human beings are clever for inventing a word for a thing that cannot possibly exist. 

      But if you really want to split hairs, fool around with semantics...it could be also said that there is no such animal as a FUTURE. nor is there such a thing as a PAST, and it can reasonably argued that the only thing that REALLY exist is the present, or what we all term as "NOW".  NOW is always with us.  It never leaves as alone nor will it go away.  Maybe its importance lies in the fact that it is a fact and not an assumption. 

     My next essay will deal with the existence of God... in five hundred words, or less.  The painting below was done when I was drunk.