IMAGINATION
Befuddled, Confounded, Clueless — Fiction Keeps Me Future Oriented
“Your imagination can supply life.” — Feynman
Despite prevailing sage advice, it’s literally impossible to live in the moment. The present is a gift we open sideways, never head-on.
A novelist can choose to write in the present tense — my favorite way to experience the characters directly — but most stories are told from a reflective stance, as if the author / narrator is looking back, from the vantage of a few minutes ago (always catching up on events) or, more often revealing details sifted from a profound chronic distance.
Hindsight is how we discover things and imbue them with credibility.
In the present moment, we’re befuddled, confounded, clueless about the core truth of our experience. I’m thrilled to be typing these words, but do I really understand their impact (or lack thereof?) until I’ve set them aside to ferment in a dark cave for a while?
We can’t comfortably live in the present because the NOW is brittle and precarious.
It’s always changing, shifting under us — this moment is a precipice, a cliff’s edge, a riverbank intersecting intermingling, unrelenting currents.
