dougs digs

The very foundation, i.e. didactical approach, of both my professional and educational (grad school especially) framework is the philosophy of approaching and experiencing life in the "here-and-now". I am convinced this is in direct opposition to our true nature, which is exactly why it is both difficult and necessary.

I was first exposed to the term and concept of living in the here-and-now through my education and training in Rogerian Therapy, named after the great Carl Rogers. If you are not familiar with Carl, get to be familiar; his conceptualizations of life completely revolutionized my understanding and approach. Carl had two classifications for functioning and operating in life, healthy and unhealthy. Unhealthy living is the absence of the qualities of healthy living (Carl also refers to this as "fully functioning"), which are:

1. Openness to experience - This is the opposite of defensiveness. It is the accurate perception of one's experiences in the world, including one's feelings. It also means being able to accept reality, again including one's feelings. Feelings are such an important part of openness because they convey organismic valuing. If you cannot be open to your feelings, you cannot be open to actualization. The hard part, of course, is distinguishing real feelings from the anxieties brought on by conditions of worth.

2. Existential living - (this is living in the here-and-now) Rogers, as a part of getting in touch with reality, insists that we not live in the past or the future -- the one is gone, and the other isn't anything at all, yet! The present is the only reality we have. Mind you, that doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and learn from our past. Neither does it mean we shouldn't plan or even daydream about the future. Just recognize these things for what they are: memories and dreams, which we are experiencing here in the present.

3. Organismic trusting - We should allow ourselves to be guided by the organismic valuing process. We should trust ourselves; do what feels right, what comes natural. This, as I'm sure you realize, has become a major sticking point in Rogers' theory. People say, sure, do what comes natural -- if you are a sadist, hurt people; if you are a masochist, hurt yourself; if the drugs or alcohol make you happy, go for it; if you are depressed, kill yourself . . . This certainly doesn't sound like great advice. In fact, many of the excesses of the sixties and seventies were blamed on this attitude. But keep in mind that Rogers meant trust your real self, and you can only know what your real self has to say if you are open to experience and living existentially!

4. Experiential freedom - Rogers felt that it was irrelevant whether or not people really had free will. We feel very much as if we do. This is not to say, of course, that we are free to do anything at all: We are surrounded by a deterministic universe, so that, flap my arms as much as I like, I will not fly like Superman. It means that we feel free when choices are available to us. Rogers says that the fully-functioning person acknowledges that feeling of freedom, and takes responsibility for his choices.

5. Creativity - If you feel free and responsible, you will act accordingly, and participate in the world. A fully-functioning person, in touch with actualization, will feel obliged by their nature to contribute to the actualization of others, even life itself. This can be through creativity in the arts or sciences, through social concern and parental love, or simply by doing one's best at one's job.

Pretty cool stuff, huh ?

What brought me to share this little bit of info and history about my foundation, is that I came across a great piece of literature today in regards to this very approach to life espoused by two other tremendous thinkers of modern history, Blaise Pascal and C.S. Lewis. The parallels and similarities among these three blew me away. It just reinforced the conscious discipline it takes to live and operate in the here-and-now. This what I came across by Blaise and Clive :

We are profoundly unaware of the present. That is, the here and now, the place that we always are, is the place that we are least likely to see for what it fully is. Blaise Pascal, though living four centuries ago, keenly diagnosed this peculiar human condition. In his work, Pensees, he masterfully articulates our seeming lack of interest in the present.

Writes Pascal, "Let each one examine his thoughts, and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and, as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so."

That is a powerful proclamation, isn't it? The present is never our end. If this is true, Pascal's grim thought is worth examining. Though we hope and toil for life, we never really live. And indeed, looking back most of us can readily recall a particularly squandered time in our lives; a time we now wish we were more fully attentive, more fully present. Truly, the now of life is far more significant than we often realize.

C.S. Lewis once asked, "Where, except in the present, can the Eternal be met?" This is why the present is so profoundly important. You see, God is always nearest to us "now." Where Jesus says, "Follow me," where he pleads, "Come to me," there is both urgency and immediacy in his voice. Now is where he asks us to draw near; now is when we must decide to follow or not to follow; now is where we rejoice in this day he hath made. So indeed, seize the day, for the promises of the one who came in the fullness of time are boldly written upon this very moment.

My hope is that we all can realize the intrinsic and extrinsic reasons to live and function in the present. I pray for God to grant us his strength and wisdom to be disciplined enough to do so then we might truly be able to hear Him and each other.