Gaston Bachelard - The Intuition of the Present
Gaston Bachelard is a French philosopher who is well known for his books on the psychoanalysis of the elements (air, water, fire, and earth). He has also written interesting reflections on time (past - present - future), in his book "L'Intuition de L'Instant" (The Intuition of the Instant). The latter is my subject in this brief note.
The notion of time is divided in past, future and present. The past and the future are not real. They are ideas and images lodged in our consciousness and in our unconscious. Only the present is real, tangible.
The past is made up of all the ghosts that inhabit our imagination. Some ghosts are good-natured, representing our selective memories of moments in our life which have left positive imprints in our unconscious and in our consciousness. Some ghosts are ill-natured, representing various sorts of negative imprints left by earlier events of our life in our unconscious and in our consciousness. The ghosts of the past can appear as regrets, satisfactions, sources of pride, sources of shame, nightmares, lessons to remember, and so on. These ghosts live their own life in our unconscious, and may indeed have effects on our behavior in the present, but they are ghosts of the past. They may be transformed over time, embellished, rendered more ugly, blown up in size or diminished, depending on our internal psychological mechanisms of selection, repression and images of the self. Sometimes, these ghosts may grow so big - either in our consciousness or in our unconscious - that they take completely control of our behaviour or well-being in the present. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have, of course, much to say about this.
The future is made up of all the illusions, in the form of fears, desires and hopes, that our imagination is producing. These illusions are greatly influenced by your personality and by the ghosts of the past. Your attitudes towards risk, your evaluation of what is possible and what is not possible, your sense of initiative and capacity to take action to influence your own situation, your will-power, fighting spirit or lack of such are among the important factors that will color your illusions in dark or bright colors. They will nevertheless be illusions, until confronted by the facts and forces (including your own actions) that produce the present.
The present is the moment when the ghosts of the past and the illusions of the future are confronted with actual events and interaction with other beings. It is an instant that, depending on the nature of your actions, senses and perceptions, produces a multitude of events and feelings that in turn will be processed by your selective memories. The present is the only part of our life which is real in a tangible sense, and it lasts only for a moment. An interesting view on the present is illustrated by the discussion on the notion of mindfulness. In essence, according to Jon Kabat-Zim of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, this is about attention, awareness, relations and caring in the present time. Mindfulness, in this serious version of the notion, deals with our experience of: a) the present moment; b) our own bodies; c) our own thoughts and emotions; d) our tacit and constraining assumptions; e) our highly conditioned habits of mind and behaviour.
The great literary critic, Harold Bloom, has in his book "The Western Canon" reproduced a passage in Shakespeare's play "Measure for Measure" (the Duke's speech in act 3, scene 1), and a comment on this by Dr. Samuel Johnson:
Thou hast nor youth, nor age
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both
Dr. Johnson's comment, as reproduced by Bloom, goes as follows:
"This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening."
The capacity to concentrate on what is happening in the present, while at the same time mastering the ghosts of the past and harnessing the illusions of the future, together make up the quality of your life.
The notion of time is divided in past, future and present. The past and the future are not real. They are ideas and images lodged in our consciousness and in our unconscious. Only the present is real, tangible.
The past is made up of all the ghosts that inhabit our imagination. Some ghosts are good-natured, representing our selective memories of moments in our life which have left positive imprints in our unconscious and in our consciousness. Some ghosts are ill-natured, representing various sorts of negative imprints left by earlier events of our life in our unconscious and in our consciousness. The ghosts of the past can appear as regrets, satisfactions, sources of pride, sources of shame, nightmares, lessons to remember, and so on. These ghosts live their own life in our unconscious, and may indeed have effects on our behavior in the present, but they are ghosts of the past. They may be transformed over time, embellished, rendered more ugly, blown up in size or diminished, depending on our internal psychological mechanisms of selection, repression and images of the self. Sometimes, these ghosts may grow so big - either in our consciousness or in our unconscious - that they take completely control of our behaviour or well-being in the present. Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung have, of course, much to say about this.
The future is made up of all the illusions, in the form of fears, desires and hopes, that our imagination is producing. These illusions are greatly influenced by your personality and by the ghosts of the past. Your attitudes towards risk, your evaluation of what is possible and what is not possible, your sense of initiative and capacity to take action to influence your own situation, your will-power, fighting spirit or lack of such are among the important factors that will color your illusions in dark or bright colors. They will nevertheless be illusions, until confronted by the facts and forces (including your own actions) that produce the present.
The present is the moment when the ghosts of the past and the illusions of the future are confronted with actual events and interaction with other beings. It is an instant that, depending on the nature of your actions, senses and perceptions, produces a multitude of events and feelings that in turn will be processed by your selective memories. The present is the only part of our life which is real in a tangible sense, and it lasts only for a moment. An interesting view on the present is illustrated by the discussion on the notion of mindfulness. In essence, according to Jon Kabat-Zim of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, this is about attention, awareness, relations and caring in the present time. Mindfulness, in this serious version of the notion, deals with our experience of: a) the present moment; b) our own bodies; c) our own thoughts and emotions; d) our tacit and constraining assumptions; e) our highly conditioned habits of mind and behaviour.
The great literary critic, Harold Bloom, has in his book "The Western Canon" reproduced a passage in Shakespeare's play "Measure for Measure" (the Duke's speech in act 3, scene 1), and a comment on this by Dr. Samuel Johnson:
Thou hast nor youth, nor age
But as it were an after-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both
Dr. Johnson's comment, as reproduced by Bloom, goes as follows:
"This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languor of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening."
The capacity to concentrate on what is happening in the present, while at the same time mastering the ghosts of the past and harnessing the illusions of the future, together make up the quality of your life.