State
The following arose without strain:
was I ever a baby, a child, a youth, an adolescent, a teen, a young adult. What about the moment when I ‘woke up’ where is the existence. Where is the ‘real’ memory. Where is the truth. Does it like in the now, the past, the lived experiences. Have I been here forever… how come I dont remember being born.. why am I all of a sudden here again and again in this moment. I have been to everyplace but no place. I walked down the path to the woods to get into the woods, or did I walk down that path, I can see the path. But I looked at my foot… and it was clean…
There are moments when awareness turns back upon itself.
Not in confusion —
but in sincerity.
Where does reality actually live — now, past, or story?
Why does awareness feel both eternal and freshly appearing?
These are not questions of instability.
They are questions of depth.
I. Who Am I Across Time If I Don’t Remember the Beginning?
There are photographs of a baby.
I am told that baby is me.
Yet I do not know that face from memory. There is no lived recollection of birth, no narrative thread I can follow back to the first breath.
The mind expects continuity to feel familiar.
But continuity does not require recall.
The body grew. Cells divided. Neural pathways formed. Language emerged. Identity organized.
The organism remained continuous, even when memory did not.
I do not remember being born — but I am the unfolding of that beginning.
Identity is not a movie I can rewind. It is a pattern that has been coherently forming.
The absence of memory is not the absence of self.
II. Where Does Reality Actually Live — Now, Past, or Story?
The past appears as memory — here.
The future appears as imagination — here.
Story arises now. Interpretation arises now. Even the thought “I was” happens now.
We never experience the past directly. We experience present cognition about the past.
We never experience the future directly. We experience present anticipation.
Reality does not live in story.
Story lives in awareness.
And awareness is immediate.
The present moment does not stack itself on top of the last. It refreshes.
That freshness can feel destabilizing when the nervous system is strained. It can feel luminous when the system is regulated.
The difference is not metaphysical. It is physiological safety.
III. Why Does Awareness Feel Eternal and Freshly Appearing?
There is something curious about consciousness.
It does not feel aged.
Memories age. Bodies age. Narratives accumulate.
But awareness itself does not seem to carry years.
It is always appearing as now.
This can create a paradox:
“I have been here forever.”
“I am suddenly here again.”
Both sensations point to the same truth.
Awareness does not accumulate time. It reveals experience.
It feels eternal because it is not experienced as aging. It feels new because it is always immediate.
The mind tries to locate it in chronology. But awareness is not chronological.
It is present.
Attunement
Attunement is not dissolving the self.
It is the alignment of awareness, body, and environment.
When attuned:
The room feels solid.
The breath is steady.
Existential inquiry does not remove the ground beneath the feet.
Questions can arise without destabilizing identity.
A baby photograph can be viewed without erasing continuity.
Memory can be incomplete without threatening existence.
Awareness can feel vast without leaving the body.
Attunement is flexible. Flowing. Non-worried.
It is higher-order thinking rooted in a regulated nervous system.
Today’s inquiry did not lead away from reality.
It revealed something simple:
I do not remember the beginning —
yet I am its unfolding.
Reality does not live in story —
story lives in awareness.
Awareness feels timeless —
because it is always now.
And now is inhabitable.
What remains is presence — steady, embodied, here.
