two scales of time: now and a lifetime

there are only two scales of time that truly matter:

the here and now + a lifetime

over the past two weeks, I’ve been slowly coming to terms with the realization that I won’t be here — living this quiet, Japanese countryside life in this library-house — forever. this realization unsettled and terrified me. it dawned on me while I was very comfortably living the settled life of a rooted plant. but spring (and my impending visa expiration) reminded me that I used to have a past life as a tumbleweed, too, drifting from city to city. I remember that once upon a time, I was happy as a tumbleweed.

so, is life nothing more than a dance between dual selves, opposing natures, of riding a single wave, and then another wave, and then another one?

we cannot be everything, all at once. nor can we do everything, all at once. but we can be everything — and do everything we dream of — spread out over an entire lifetime. perhaps the real practice is to train ourselves in the scale of a single moment vs. a lifetime — rather than in the median terms of days, weeks, months, years.

is this not the reason why spiritual teachers and mystics tell us to contemplate death, and then, to practice nowness and here-ness?

these are the two scales of time that really matter.

an entire life.

a moment.