Happy Sunday, everyone.

I've been reading the book Black Elk Speaks lately. Great book, really incredible premise: in 1930 an American author met with Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux holy man who was born during the twilight of the Plains tribes, to hear his story and transcribe his words. Black Elk fought in the battle of Little Bighorn. He was the cousin of Crazy Horse.

There's a scene early in the book where Black Elk is recounting a vision he had at the age of 9 and mentions that he was standing on a mountain peak in the "center of the world." The transcriber asks him which mountain was it, wondering if it was an actual place in the real world, and Black Elk gives him the name of the mountain it probably was, but then he follows up with a fantastic line that has really stuck with me:

"But anywhere is the center of the world."

This is true. Your entire frame of reference for reality is your own interpretation of the moment. It's what you see behind your eyes. Where you stand is the center of the world. Everyone and every place in it are set pieces and characters revolving around you. That doesn't mean they're not important, or you don't love them, or you wouldn't die for the people who matter to you. It's just that your frame of reference is your own experience. It's you. It should be you and no one and nothing else.

It couldn't work any other way. 

In a similar vein, the present moment is eternal. It is all that exists. No other moment can exist until it happens—at which point it becomes the present moment. 

Things start going wrong when you lose sight of this, don't they?

If you start worrying about the future, about untold potentialities that may or may not unfold, you lose the plot. Those futures do not exist. You are being irrational. This is anxiety.

If you start spending too much time in the past, you dissolve. Your potential slips away, and the present moment speeds up, gets more slippery, hard to hold and experience. Nostalgia is best treated like hard liquor—sampled and savored on rare occasions. 

Now, that's not to say we don't think about the future, but there's a healthy way to think about the future without it becoming an escape or a bout of anxiety. 

Both the future and past can feel like eternities, but they're false eternities. Eternities you can never really hold or experience. The present meanwhile is here, right now, with you. You can sink your teeth in it. 

Don't forget that, folks.

Are you the center of the world? You should be.

I'd love to know your thoughts on the future, the now, and where the center of your world lies. Leave a comment in this week's New and Noteworthy. 

#listentothesisson