I had not intended earlier to be writing this, but I have moments prior experienced what is perhaps simultaneously the most frightful and most comforting epiphany.
As I lay in bed, it occurred to me that perhaps I may not wake up. I realized then that this was not restricted to only the moments prior to slumber, but that it extended to every waking moment.
If it is the case that each moment be my last, against which I have no rational justification, then it stands to reason that I live this as the only one I have.
And if I were only to live in this singular moment, then I could not afford to waste it. I understand now perhaps what Nietzsche meant when he said, “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—but love it.”
I have understood this always as concerning the life that I have lived, but this cannot be sufficient- baked into such an understanding is the indefensible presumption concerning temporal matters, whose basis remains unfounded. Prior’s notion of the present comes to mind here- that the only ‘real’ is the ‘present’.
If this is the case, then to justify life in terms of either what ‘has been’ done or alternatively in terms of what ‘will be done’ is wholly insufficient. The only way to be capable of living ‘meaningfully’ is to live in the present, and to in THIS moment live as if it is the totality of your existence, for you are ONLY what you are right now. To even conceive of how you will do better tomorrow is incoherent, and to assume that what you have done will redeem you of a ‘mistake’ you make in this moment is equally incoherent.
Hyder Husain Arastu 