The Moment

I've often thought this, but never been able to put my finger on the thought firmly enough to write it down, however, it seems I've been beaten to it by a few thousand years and by a Roman emperor no less!

Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. For the present is the same to all, though that which is past is not the same; and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any one take this from him ? These two things then thou must bear in mind; the one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same things during a hundred years or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not

Marcus Auerelius, Meditations, Second Book

It's a little bit like that Buddhist idea of life being like the wheel of a cart travelling down the 'road', with the past and future meeting in an almost imperceptible moment at the point of contact (such is life). I think these thoughts ring true. How about you? Also, as we get older (read: as I get older) I think the wheel, if you can imagine a car now instead of a cart, slowly-slowly (again imperceptibly) deflates so that it's harder to notice events, time passing, bumps in the road, the present feels less defined (bumpy?). Going senile doesn't happen overnight (?). Well there you go, I know what I mean anyway :)