this great illusion

Time.

"The objective world simply is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling upward along the lifeline of my body, does a section of the world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continually changes." -Herman Weyl

I love talking about the past because it is the only really concrete thing I have.

The present is almost illusory. It slips by so quickly that I never really even realize that I ever had it, much less feel like I know what I ought to do with it.

The future is too problematic to even deal with. It is, in reality, completely uncertain, yet I somehow convince myself that I have the capability of controlling it. I visualize, plan, and predict. When future moves to present, I wring my hands and watch as it slips into the ambiguity of the stasis of "now."

How can I determine what to do with "now" when I am so focused on all the possibilities of "then" - of tomorrow, of some distant time and space?

But then, as the moment - carefully dancing with and gripping all the other molecules surrounding it and qualifying its existence - slips into the past, it frees me from this worry. It is over. Its existence, its quality, its validity, does not depend on me or what I do with it. Consciousness is no longer required, no responsibility is asked of me. I can laugh. But sometimes it is better to cry.