The Power of Now

[FallentoReason]

It's almost like a saying in a way, because no one would say e.g. 'I feel like a pizza in 1x10^-99 seconds'. You just say 'I feel like a pizza right now'.

Well, what you think in the "idea of now" motivates your actions in the immediate future.

e.g.

I feel like a pizza
Walk to kitchen
Open drawer containing odd 'n' ends and takeaway menus
Find one that sells pizza
Walk to phone
Make phonecall
Order pizza
...etc

Short-term future events work a little like short-term memory of past events. You're planning the series of events that will lead to the phone call, starting with your walk to the kitchen. As the events unfold, short-term future events become short-term memory. The transition between those two states are what we think of as "now". Even though it doesn't actually exist.

But just strip it back to basics. Let's think even before that thought runs through your mind (of wanting pizza), what is it that triggered it? Hunger. Is the hunger happening in the future or is it an event that continuously happens in the 'now'? If hunger was an event in the future but never came to pass in the 'now' and eventually be a thing of the past, then you wouldn't ever feel hungry. The future has to come to pass, but through something, right?

I know that mathematically 'now' doesn't exist because the past and future squeeze out the room for there to be a 'now' (if the gap between the past and 'now' approaches zero, and same with the gap between 'now' and the future), but now that I think of it (no pun intended) maybe there's something more to it...