Presencing

I want to write. That’s what I’ve been thinking about all day today. So I will do that now.

I didn’t have a topic particularly in mind that I wanted to write about, but I know I want to write, so surely. What does that mean? 

Logically, perhaps I’m just trying to make real an act I have, in my head; an act that will result in a product, that is not necessarily tangible (how much of our interaction nowadays is in fact tangible, anyway?), but definitely something that is perceivable. Something solid in an abstract sense. 

That, is my idea of presencing. Making something present.  

I recently learned about the Miltonian belief of the soul and body being one from doing some close reading of Paradise Lost — the inseparableness between physicality and spirituality. To Milton, there is something very physical about the spirit and the soul; similarly, tangibility in everything around and of us is indeed very much integrated in our mind, in our spirituality. This oneness and this sense of unanimity intrigues, because it is so interrelated with what we do diurnally. 

Think: when you’re simply walking down a street. The motion of your feet in your shoes stepping carelessly over whatever is on the ground. Every blink of an eye, a slightly different frame of picture per millisecond. Turn around, and the view of what is behind you was where you were perhaps just a minute ago. If you are really thinking about this, and apply the same concept to another mundane scenario, how strange and mind-blowing is the concept of presence? It is absolutely not absolute. Presence in fact takes on an extremely inconstant place in reality. How are we ever 100% present? 

Human beings are naturally moving subjects. The ability and intellect that allow us to do all sorts of interactions with each other prove that we are not meant to be habitual to one single space throughout our lifetime; we are beings in motion. Naturally, though, we also attach to our surroundings so easily. Sickly, powerlessly easily. What do we do then? We try to live in the moment and be present. We came up with measures like time, attention levels, grades in exams, and ideas like commitments. Things that will merge our wandering selves and minds with something unmoving and lifeless. In turn, these mixtures become meaningful to us, because now we have attached a sense of significance to them, and they somehow rightfully reflect our presence. We essentially frame our presence into a stable; a concept tainted with a sense of restrain (from–either the mind or the body—being elsewhere) and self-control. However, presence is a fragile thing. Presence exists in the second, the moment—the space in time that cannot be captured nor measured. Presence represents a form of attempt in merging the spirituality and physicality of oneself, including the space one is in, together. 

Absence, in contrast, carries far more concreteness than presence. 

When something is missing, or simply not there, the actual absence, the outline of the person, object, feeling...whatever it may be, and the emptiness derived from it appears to be much more apparent and present than the memory of him, of her, of it physically being there. 

It entertains to think that we are constantly creating something, even our own presence. Presence can only be treated, realistically, in a very abstract sense. Meaning, you may probably never have my full attention, nor may I have yours. 

Now, consider this simple example of another way presence presents itself: having a meal in a group. We are capturing a sense of space and making a time that has the potential to be memorable together as individuals. The process of sharing captures it. We make present a sense of presence of a group, in which there is interaction, and of space and time. The presence of the meal, the people, and the particular time of the day is framed into one in the moving world. Isn’t this a magnificent thought?