This Moment

So much has been written in the last few years about “living in the moment,” that it seems like a platitude now.

The seminal relatively recent book on the subject “The Power of Now,” introduced this concept to a wider range of people. But don’t forget there were people like Alan Watts, who wrote numerous book in the 1950s and 1960s about this topic, most notably “The Wisdom of Insecurity.” And the proliferation of meditation as a daily routine helps people connect to what is happening around them, right here, right now.

The recent spate of natural occurrences (I’m careful not to call them disasters) such as hurricanes and earthquakes have got me thinking, though. And my lifelong connection to South Florida is strong, from my toddler days (my grandparents lived there and I visited frequently), to right now, where yesterday I watched a video of the streets of downtown Miami (where I have an apartment) flow like rivers.

Even though I am safely ensconced in New York and nowhere near that situation, it affects me for the many friends I have there right now, dealing with Irma’s aftermath.

The question uppermost on my mind today is this: Is nature trying to tell us something, or are these unleashed forces purely random? I don’t know the answer to that question, but over the last few months when I was in Miami, and there were torrential downpours that lasted maybe thirty minutes, some of the streets flooded very quickly. I asked myself then what to me was the obvious question: What would happen in a hurricane? I wonder now if I was the only one who thought about these things.