There may be no stranger thing we do as human beings than spend most of our lives somewhere other than where we are.

We replay yesterday.

We rehearse tomorrow.

We revisit conversations that ended years ago and prepare answers to questions nobody has asked yet.

Meanwhile, life keeps happening.

Right here.

Right now.

Two young Harvard psychologists named Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert became fascinated with that problem more than sixty years ago. They were studying consciousness, perception, and the curious machinery of the human mind.

Eventually, both walked away from Harvard.

And then their paths began to diverge.

Leary became famous for the phrase:

“Turn on, tune in, drop out.”

Richard Alpert traveled to India, met the teacher Neem Karoli Baba, became Ram Dass, and eventually returned with a much quieter invitation:

“Be Here Now.”

Those phrases came out of the same turbulent era, but they point in interestingly different directions.

One challenges the structures around us.

The other challenges the structures within us.

And somewhere between the two sits a question I want to spend some time exploring:

Where are we, really?

Because most of us are remarkably good at being somewhere else.

We tell ourselves we’ll relax when the work is finished.

We’ll enjoy life when we have enough money.

We’ll take the trip when the timing is better.

We’ll call the friend tomorrow.

We’ll slow down when things settle down.

We’ll be happy when…

That little word when has swallowed an enormous amount of human life.

I’ve certainly fed it my share.

But the older I get, the more suspicious I become of the bargain.

Tomorrow is useful. We should plan for it.

Yesterday is useful. We should learn from it.

But neither one is a place where we can actually live.

There is only this strange, constantly disappearing point between them.

Now.

The Taoists understood something about that long before Harvard psychologists started experimenting with consciousness.

So did the Stoics.

So did mystics, sailors, poets, monks, farmers, and probably anyone who has ever sat quietly enough to notice the world without immediately trying to improve it.

The wave doesn’t postpone breaking.

The rain doesn’t schedule falling.

The bird doesn’t wait for a more convenient moment to leave the branch.

Nature seems remarkably comfortable with now.

We are the ones who struggle with it.

Maybe because now doesn’t always cooperate.

Sometimes now is beautiful.

Sometimes now hurts.

Sometimes now is boring.

Sometimes we’d much rather be somewhere else.

And perhaps that’s where this becomes more interesting than another cheerful instruction to “live in the moment.”

Being present isn’t pretending every moment is wonderful.

It may simply mean being willing to inhabit the one we’ve actually been given.

This week I want to poke around in that idea.

We’ll spend some time with Ram Dass and Timothy Leary. I’m sure Lao Tzu, Alan Watts, Marcus Aurelius, and a few of our other old traveling companions will wander into the conversation too.

I’m not particularly interested in finding a formula for enlightenment.

I’d rather ask a simpler question.

How much of our lives do we miss while waiting for our lives to begin?

I don’t know where this exploration will take us.

Which, come to think of it, seems appropriate.

We’ll find out when we get there.

Or perhaps more accurately…

when we get here.

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