“If he lacks this focus, if his soul is dispersed in the manifold from the beginning, then he will never have time to make the movement; he will constantly be running errands in life, never entering eternity, for even at the moment when he is closest to it he will suddenly discover that he has forgotten something and consequently must go back” Søren Kierkegaard
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The mind is an expert list maker. It is the original task manager. Prioritizing, schematizing, constructing and planning. In the same way that your skin doesn’t stop feeling the world, the mind never stops conceiving. As such — it is easy to be scattered and diffuse. For even when the body is still, the belly is full, and the heart is content — the mind will find something more to do.
“If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present” Ludwig Wittgenstein
Yet if we wish to enter the eternal, we must recognize when it is time to put down the mind. Timelessness is entered when we step out of time. And what is time but succession? And what is the most salient form of succession if not our stream of thoughts? To dwell in the eternal present is to stop being pulled by the mind. It’s not about having nothing to do, it’s about doing nothing.
