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Morning Reflection: Nearsighted when it comes to looking into the future

There’s a model (originally economics) called hyperbolic discounting, which speaks to the human tendency of choosing a reward now over wanting the greater reward that will happen later. In liberal application, this law can allude to our relative inability to see beyond the seeable, comprehensible distance over the things up close: what is happening or might happen in the immediate future or present. I believe this rings true for the scenario we find ourselves in in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

The pain, the discomfort, and the anxieties of the circumstances we find ourselves in are absolutely real. But, we (I) can choose to see beyond for what could happen that could be greater and more meaningful in magnitude over the mess in the immediate– see the good being written even now.

The motifs and the arc defining this story remain to be set in stone. We don’t know what lies ahead for us. We don’t know what the larger picture will be. I’m not referring to the next 2 or 3 years. I’m talking about the next 10, 20, and 30 years.

We must press on in hope, thinking and choosing to look to more hopeful outcomes– to where the real story might be. And in the meantime, be present and do as as much as we can for our family, our friends, and our people.

Some quotes from my journal that I’ve leaving for added contemplation:

“You cannot draw on the future. Impossible to get into debt! You can only waste the passing moment. You cannot waste tomorrow, it is kept from you.
You have to live on this 24 hours of time. Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect and the evolution of your immortal soul. It’s right use…is a matter of the highest urgency.”
– Arnold Bennett
“We become, neurologically, what we think.”
– Nicholas Carr
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Flow

I *think* poems in the car

On the toilet seat

At the opening of my sleep

Because

I don’t really know why

For some reason these places conduct (produce) flow

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Nothing

The joy of

Being able to hold hands for the longest time with someone you love

Even as it seems still like borrowed time

And you know [on Monday] you’ll part

To freeze time

I would

 

What I would

Do

 

What I would do

To turn back time

To do it all over again

Even if we were to make the same mistakes

Say the same words

Do the same things

What I would do to see \italicize{that} smile [I cannot remember] 4 inches from my face

 

4.15.2019

The first half is about familial love

The second half is about romantic love

I wrote it on the ride back from The Berkshires as I was cherishing the last moments of holding Joanne’s hands in the backseat of the car with Mom driving and Jocelyn sitting up front.

Until the next time.

I miss mom already. 

This trip wasn’t restful, as there were so many things I was recovering from, and other unsettling things coming in anew. It was cathartic. That is the most accurate word.

It is well.

God is good.

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Visiting Jo in Cambridge

This photo is of Joanne and I wrapping up our last night together on campus at MIT.

Joanne is studying for Midterms

I was getting through the book I’m currently reading.

We do a late night of independent reading and get home close to 12 to sleep.

Joanne was under the weather during my visit, so we spent the time cooking, baking, and talking. We rarely touched our phones.

I spent my time here reading and filming Joanne, and tried to keep my head off of work.

Joanne occupied herself with studying, journaling, and trying to memorize Romans 8 and then have me test her on it (… too many times). I sauntered through the rooms of her Cambridge apartment to Romans… woke up to Romans… slept to Romans….

We also had a lovely afternoon of opera listening thanks to Alexa,  and chatting all things classical.

[Joanne wields a much more expansive knowledge of opera than I (I keep mixing up my Bellinis, my Puccinis, *sigh*), although I arguably have the stronger generalist knowledge in classical music as a genre.]

I didn’t know who Maria Callas was and I half expected her to jump up from the bed she was reclining in with her iPad (her study tool) and exclaim: “YOU HEATHEN!”.  I feel with you reading this and you not knowing her, you would think this an exaggerated assumption on my part. It’s really not. This is very much her.

Maybe she wouldn’t exclaim it.

She’d more probably

1. jump sitting up

2. look at me coldly, and

3. pronounce on me in a very matter-of-fact, but utterly damning way, “you heathen”

I laugh writing this on my Amtrak back to the city. This is she.

Joanne is incredibly bright and intense. and cute. and intimidating.. She is both the younger sister that needs my emotional and physical protection, but also admonishes me about my low standards of living (I won’t go into the details) and goes on entire speeches on the decline of good values and manners in today’s society. I chuckle just thinking of her crazy rainbow colored personality.

I paint an odd picture of her with just this anecdote, but if you came to know her, you would love her.

Alright, back to the myriad of product & research files am reviewing.

xSoo