Here and Now/Not

We find ourselves complaining
About all the kids endlessly on their cellphones
(Although, really, the "adults" are just as bad).
Those little rectangular boxes are a drug
That causes them to miss the world right before them.
Some people argue that the phones
Are just another information and entertainment delivery system,
No different than reading a book
Or listening to a transistor radio.

And it made me ponder:
Ever since cave men and cave women
First started painting pictures on walls,
Ever since we starting imagining where we came from
Or where we are going,
We have been paying attention to both
The world right before us
Here and Now,
And to this other world made of pictures and words and dreams,
Made of interpretations of the world
And imaginary things that never existed.
The Not Here and Not Now.

On some level it seems absurd.
We need to appreciate the sights and sounds and people right in front of us,
Instead of always being
Immersed somehow in that other world,
Distracted from the people closest to us,
Missing out the trees and sunrises,
The ordinary life around us.

The other world
The imaginary world
The second-hand world
Is a distraction that steals away our lives
Bit by bit.
Whether it's a painting
Or a novel
Or a game show
or a slasher film
A play
Or a game on our cellphones
(Even ones that sends us outside to find digital critters)

Be. Here. Now.
Right?

Well...

There's a problem with that.
The other world,
The second-hand world,
Has its virtues.

When I think of the confining nature of here and now
I get a little claustrophibic.
Here and now
Has some pretty
Tight parameters
Walling
Us
In.

If had only Here,
We wouldn't know about other places
People
Ideas
Technologies
Geographies
Galaxies
That aren't here in front of us,
Places that we only get to see
Through other people's words or pictures,
Indirect. Not Here, Not Now.

If we only had Now
We'd be unable to look forward to the future or appreciate the past
We'd have no history to give us wisdom to help us make now worth living
We'd have no imagined futures to work toward.
The past and future belong to
Not Here and Not Now.
In fact, the more I think about it,
The whole world of thought
Is really Not Here and Not Now.

And yet it is thoughts from this other world
That have helped us create the world we live in.
The Here and Now we need to pay attention to
Only exists
The way it is
Because it is built from elements of that other world
Of Not Here and Not Now.

So perhaps the question isn't
"Is the Here and Now good
And the Not Here Not Now bad?"
Perhaps the real issue is this:
Making choices about
Which world to pay attention to when.
Because not everything in that other world
Is worth your time.
But neither is everything Here and Now.

And of course, it's really more than one world.
My vantage point on Right Here Right Now
Differs from yours.
And there is more than one kind of
Not Here Not Now.
A book is different from a movie
Is different from a cellphone
Is different from Twitter
Is different from Instagram
Is different from a talk show
Is different from a theme park.

What exactly are theme parks?
Not Here Not Now - or Here and Now?

We all live in a multiverse
Housed within our heads
Must these worlds collide,
Deforming and ruining each other?
Or can these universes we dance between
Coexist
Enrich
Inform
And bless
Each other
And ourselves?

It depends on how we look at it.