What if the present does not actually exist?
By the time we notice a moment,
it has already become the past.
And the future never arrives as the future
it simply appears
and immediately becomes something we remember.
So perhaps we never actually live in “now.”
Maybe consciousness is always
one fraction of a second behind reality,
mistaking its memory of existence
for existence itself.
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Canary word: Present
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142,323 Literary Works • 677,256 Reviews
okay but if the present doesn’t exist, technically I never posted this.
~_~
heyy,Hira!!♡
GIRL, WHY DOES UR BRAIN COMES UP WITH THE IDEAS
Such a fascinating idea because we consider the present as something that is real but u made it seem like something we are not really sure about. The thought that when we become conscious of something, it has already become a past is truly remarkable.
My favorite lines were
like what if all of us are living in the present, but experiencing it in a past? Such a fascinating idea where the thought of us living in some what close to reality is close to an illusion.
And I truly loved how u ended it with a question about the difference between remembering that u existed, and existing in the first place.
It is short, yet leaves many questions unanswered, which I truly loved. Such a fascinating idea and well done, Hira!! <3
~lilly♡ the fire dragon
I was thinking about that one day as well☁
How consciousness operates feels so abstract indeed. It feels like a swirl of thoughts making its way to turn into a poem. Feels like midnight wonders. It questions a person's perspective of time, which has felt plain and straight. To think about it, it feels like we're floating in thin air. Under us lives a spinning land, to make it solid enough we call the continuous movement as a ‘now'.
I love short poems actually, it lingers with me. And this poem is a great one that goes through profound realization as one pause to sense the world around and the time around.
It reminds me of one GIF that I saw.This poem feels like a latte brown, slightly maroon and cream. That's a beautiful combo I think¡ 🐟
Writing that ‘now' simply cannot be what we assume because it has passed, that passage is what we perceive then the time that follows it forward turns into memory real quick. That's genuinely so well-written.
It makes everything feel like a simulation ‘softly’. It doesn't keep the reader where they were before they read this, but gives them a merry-go-round ride. That's the kind of poem that is remembered.
There's nothing to nitpick in here. I'm commenting on how it made me feel.
Deeply evocative poem¡ 🔅 Keep writing~
Have a nice day 🍄
Thank u for taking this so seriously i should probably confess that this wasn’t actually meant to be a poem It was literally just a random philosophical thought i dumped here and somehow it became a whole thing >_<
This actually made me stop and think for a while. I really liked the idea behind it, especially the thought that by the time we notice a moment, it's already become the past. The ending was probably my favorite part because the idea of consciousness being slightly behind reality is kind of unsettling but really interesting.
I also like how simple the wording is. You didn't overcomplicate the idea even though it's a pretty deep topic. the concept itself is really interesting. It definitely made me think about how weird “now” actually is. Great job!!
Thank uu And i probably owe u a tiny clarification: i wasn’t really trying to write a poem here It was more like a random philosophical thought that escaped my brain and i decided to post it but i genuinely appreciate u taking the time to unpack it!
Ahh! Ohh ok thank you for that
It blew my mind. The whole concept is so complex but it makes total sense.
It's saying that we might not even live in the present because our brains are lagging behind real life. My favorite line was, "By the time we notice a moment, it has already become the past." It’s so true though! The exact second you think about "now," it's already gone.
Then it says the future doesn't really exist either because "it simply appears and immediately becomes something we remember." hello??
I loved the ending "one fraction of a second behind reality" and we are just mistaking a "memory of existence for existence itself." It’s written so simply but it sounds so clean and professional and not boring i guess.
Thank u for the thoughtful review! Also plot twist: this is not actually a poem It’s basically just philosophical nonsense that i had in my head and decided to throw onto YWS im honestly impressed you managed to analyse it this seriously : D
This is a thoughtful and intense little poem! My head always spins when I think about this, and I like how succinctly you unpack the concept and leave it for the reader to soak in.
That opening question is so engaging; I love how conversational it feels, like somebody's just turned to me and shared something that's on their mind. I kind of wish it was 'doesn't' rather than 'does not', to really lean into that!
This line is quite clunky. This concept is a difficult one to articulate concisely, and I do think it deserves a place in the poem, but this feels like it's belabouring the point a bit too much. I wonder if this might be a moment to reach for some metaphor or other figurative language?
These last two lines are really fantastic and are, for me, the real highlight of the poem. There's something so sad and haunting about them, but I'm not sure I could articulate why.
A general point: I wonder if you could play more with the process of reading, and how it ties into this concept of time always progressing? I'm not sure how you'd do that, but it's something to think about!
Great work!
Haha thank u i genuinely just dumped a philosophical thought about time here and called it a day now you’re making me think about my own nonsense more deeply than I intended to : D