The present

Less than 70,000 years ago, a mere 5000 homo sapiens huddled together to survive a nasty eruption. They rose from this bottleneck to spread their genes to every nook and corner of the blue planet. For the next 60,000 years, until the advent of agriculture, they lived with dangers all around them and in a low probability of reaching the next moment. For most of their history, humans lived in the present. They could not store food or information, they could not codify thoughts and emotions, they could not predict the weather or the approaching tiger, and they could not ensure outcomes or the future. There were no Gods to turn to in times of peril and no signposts in the forest of noise and confusion.

But now, the present does not appear to matter. Some say time is not real and it might as well be, for it is missing the present and the future is uncertain. The artifacts they created in the past — religion, countries, and casts — intermixed with nature’s own segmentation schemes, the skin color, and gender, seem to occupy most of their adventures. It is the past that appears to be important, not because of the present but rather the need to perpetuate it into the future. Such is the power of the past; it propels humans into the future without a shadow of experience from the present. They have made crystal balls and machines that predict the future precisely from the past, without the need for the present.

Some say there is an arrow of time, something that prevents a journey back into the past. But this appears incorrect as humans live in the past and not in the present. Although contemporary theory allows time travel, humans reject this on the basis that the future has to be about the past. A future that does not incorporate the past may give undue importance to the present, an unacceptable notion.

Modern humans appear to be running away from the present. They are guided by the past; countries, wars, legacies, constitutions, and cultures. They claim that the future has to strictly adhere to the past and the present is irrelevant and fleeting. The past is real as they can touch and feel the injustices and meager attempts to get around them. The past is real because they can count the dead in well-kept logs. The past is real because they can remember how they raped and pillaged their neighbors as they journeyed smoothly to the future. The past is real because they can remember how they divided with walls and ignorance in an attempt to secure the future. The past is real and the present is not.

Humans have lost the present and they are living to perpetuate the past into the future.