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Sam Harris - It Is Always Now

There is really nothing I can add to the following words of Sam Harris other than:

Watch. Listen. Enjoy.

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Tags: It Is Always Now, Sam Harris

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 2, 2013 at 12:55am

Thanks Loren!

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 3, 2013 at 8:52pm

Thanks for the Sam Harris thought. I'm not very good at living in the now. But at least I don't waste any of my life bickering with my husband. Watching a movie for the fourth time, however...

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on March 3, 2013 at 10:36pm

Well, there's watching a GOOD movie for the fourth time and watching a BAD one. As it happens, I'm just back from watching a restored digital print of Lawrence of Arabia ... WHEW! I'm still recovering my jaw!

Permalink Reply by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on March 4, 2013 at 12:12am

We saw the first Star Wars seven times.

Permalink Reply by Loren Miller on March 4, 2013 at 5:23am

[smile] I saw it a few more than seven ... but then, I was watching 70 mm prints wherever possible and listening in six-channel Dolby sound. There is a difference ... a BIG one.

Permalink Reply by Joan Denoo on March 4, 2013 at 2:41am

I like when Sam Harris wrote:

"It is always now. it's possible to simply drop your problem, if only for a moment and enjoy whatever is true of your life in the present. This is not a matter of new information or more information, it requires a change in attitude; it requires a change in the attentiveness you pay to your experience in the present moment."

Permalink Reply by Tom Sarbeck on March 4, 2013 at 6:14pm

Loren, thanks for the Sam Harris clip; I've played it twice and will play it again.

About his Now: In a post-retirement trip through college I took courses I hadn't taken the first time. In a cultural anthropology course I heard of a native group, in Australia as I recall, whose people knew only the present and described both past and future as "the dream time". Harris seemed to be doing the same.

In writing groups in recent years I've written mostly essays and short memoirs on events in my life (like becoming a US Navy sailor and evolving to atheism). In essays I experimented with replacing my "we" and "you" pronouns with "I" and liked the results better than I did the originals. If Harris were in a writing group with me I would suggest that he replace his first person plurals and second persons in this essay with first person singulars and describe his reactions.

Permalink Reply by Steph S. on March 4, 2013 at 10:08pm