Everything everywhere all at once (not the movie)

Perhaps it’s because I’ve had a particularly energized couple of weeks with many tasks. Tasks that I mostly looked forward to, although included were some unwelcome tasks but still taken on with a hopeful spirit. A spirit of overcoming my usual resistance to them. Yet still I had hopes to conquer other small things which I masterfully traded for others which excused my procrastination. Perhaps it’s with all that, that I’m thinking about this movie title. I’m finding that my existence, or more precisely my experience of my existence is that I’m everywhere in my past, in my present, in thoughts that are some place or time other than my present. I’ve been trained through teachings on mindfulness to “stay” in the present and while I believe that is sound advice, it’s not that the present is the only thing that matters. Out of causes and conditions my present moment is formed. What I focused my attention on or failed to pay attention to also brought me to this moment. In a very real sense I feel like I exist in my past as well as my present. Child/adult, partner/ex partner, failure/success, young/old. All there, all at once. I can focus on any of those parts and somehow that IS where I am. Maybe not as dramatically as in the movie. I don’t see sights and hear sounds or relive these experiences as if they are happening, but I know they are there (there in the past, but yet here right now). This feels important. It’s not a mere replay of dusty home movies in my head. What intrigues me is that it’s also my future. I can see what I focus on becomes my karma. It’s as if my past is multidimensional (what I did, failed to do, could have done), so then why not my present and for that matter my future.

I thought the movie was weird. Perhaps because it felt overwhelming and inconclusive and maybe pointless. It did have the constant of wanting a “better result” that was accessible somehow. Indeed many of my daily moments seem just like this - overwhelming, inconclusive, pointless, but not without hope. But it was just tonight as I ruminated on some small sliver of my past and began to beat myself up, then focusing on another part of my past in rebuttal realized both facts were true. In fact I could reverse or fast forward my attention to anywhere in my history. It’s all one package. It’s not even all “me” because my history is shaped by others- friends, foes, major and minor supporting cast. Literally everything, everywhere all at once. But not in an overpowering overwhelming way. In a hopeful glimpse of many multiverses of possibilities. At the very least not just one fixed history from which to evaluate my present.

And now, back to this breath, this moment, this present. As inviting as that multiverse may seem, I don’t think I would have seen it had I not been taught to stay in the present.