I'm not in love with David Petraeus. But I think he does present a terrific role model.
I think it's what any artist would want: to feel like their work can be taken in on a level of experience beyond the headline or the press release. I don't think any artist wants to be reduced to a press release. We have a whole industry whose function it is to process and present information. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's not the thing.
Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That's what meditation is all about: being a child again - a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing.
What will the present chaos lead to? How will it all end? It can only end in one way. Mankind will be sick of it all.
Arrow-swift the present sweepeth, and motionless forever stands the past.
Perhaps extreme danger strips us of all pretenses, all ambitions, all confusions, focusing us more intensely than we are otherwise ever focused, so that we remember what we otherwise spend most of our lives forgetting: that our nature and purpose is, more than anything else, to love and to make love, to take joy from the beauty of the world, to live with an awareness that the future is not as real a place for any of us as are the present and the past.
It is pleasant to observe how free the present age is in laying taxes on the next. "Future ages shall talk of this; they shall be famous to all posterity;" whereas their time and thoughts will be taken up about present things, as ours are now.
The future will be the child of the past and the present, even if a rebellious child.
Examine the present and learn from the past to see how the future will unfold. Too often we just look at the present and base our actions solely on that.
There is no improving the future without disturbing the present.
After all, the wrong is done. It is past and cannot be changed. We have only the present and the future upon which to move forward.
I've had unsatisfying experiences, but mostly it's about communication, which is why I make an effort to talk to the director beforehand to make sure we see eye-to-eye as creative individuals. If [good] communication isn't present, you can lose something and end up very unhappy.
Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.
The Present is the living sum-total of the whole Past.
In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present.
The present moment is all you ever have.
At night, the house thick with sleep, she would peer out her bedroom window at the trees and sky and feel the presence of a mystery. Some possibility that included her--separate from her present life and without its limitations. A secret. Riding in the car with her father, she would look out at other cars full of people she'd never seen, any one of whom she might someday meet and love, and would feel the world holding her making its secret plans.
God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch but in order to be chosen. Therefore, each person must choose. Terrible is the battle, in a person's innermost being, between God and the world. The crowning risk involved lies in the possession of choice.
The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is here, live it.
