Doubling Down on Here and Now

What exactly does it mean to be present? It’s a question I’ve written about before, yet here I am again—writing another version of it. Maybe that’s the point. Presence isn’t something you figure out once and move on from. It’s a practice, a remembering.

It’s a tricky concept—hard to describe, slippery to pin down. Presence seems to have layers. But maybe the best way to understand what presence is is to first talk about what it isn’t.

The Opposite of Presence #

You’re not present when your mind is off somewhere else—replaying yesterday, worrying about tomorrow, making grocery lists, or looping through anxieties about what you’ve said, what you haven’t done, or what someone might be thinking about you. You aren’t present when you’re worrying about what you aren’t doing while failing to simply enjoy the moment you’re currently in.

The “monkey mind,” as it’s sometimes called, loves to swing from branch to branch: laundry, groceries, texts, social media, self-doubt, plans, regrets, imagined conversations. It’s endless. It’s funny, though, because your average monkey is probably a lot better at being present than we are.

Maybe you’re walking and feel compelled to check your phone. Why? Your legs don’t need LTE to work. The walk is the activity. The phone adds nothing to it.

What if you just looked around and enjoyed the walk? You could—heaven forbid—have a conversation with a stranger. Funny thing, this happened to me just yesterday. A young man (I asked when he was born; he said 2006) asked me a question on the street, and we ended up walking together for a while, having a really nice conversation mostly about nothing.

We talked about how nobody talks anymore, how everyone’s just staring at their phones. He asked if, before phones, people read newspapers on the subway. I laughed and said, “Maybe. I can’t remember.” The truth is, I wish I could. He must have assumed that I could remember the before times, and truly I cannot. We said goodbye as he walked into a restaurant to have lunch with his friends, and I’ll likely never see him again. But I won’t forget that conversation—something that never would have occurred if either of us weren’t choosing to be present.

You see this everywhere in New York—people wandering around, phones out, staring at maps, as if the city isn’t laid out on a giant grid. Manhattan is one of the easiest places in the world to navigate. Count the blocks. Look up. The street signs will tell you where you are. And if you get lost, just ask someone. People are friendly, and most are willing to help.

And yet awareness isn’t found by fighting distraction—it’s rediscovered when we stop trying to escape the moment we’re in.

When I see people walking around looking lost, I sometimes ask if they need help. People are usually quite surprised when a random stranger offers help. I also get asked for directions quite a bit; I suppose I look non-threatening.

People use maps on their phones not because they need to, but because it’s comforting to have that glowing rectangle in hand. It feels safe. It’s what we know. But it’s also what keeps us from looking up. It keeps us from looking around, talking to strangers, and getting lost. I get that maybe you have somewhere to be and a tight schedule, but just sometimes, try experiencing the world around you and getting a little bit lost in it. There’s a comfort in knowing when you do get lost, there’s probably someone there to help. If you just ask, you’d be surprised how far out of their way someone might go to help a stranger.

So What Is Presence? #

Presence is learning to just be—to exist in the literal present moment, right where you are, not in some hypothetical future or idealized elsewhere. It’s realizing that nothing in the material or virtual world matters as much as whatever is happening right here and now.

It’s easy to fantasize about where to go on your next vacation, the new gadgets you could acquire, or the bigger and better apartment. But what’s the point of any of it if you can’t be content where you already are?

What if you learned to enjoy your city, your current possessions, your current home?

If you can’t be happy here with what you already have, then you probably won’t be happy there with an assortment of new things.

This is something I’ve written about before: the idea that if you can’t be happy in your current life—with what you already have—you’ll just keep chasing mirages. A bigger house, newer clothes, another upgrade, another trip. But can you just exist with what’s in front of you? Can you learn to appreciate it? You will never reach the end of the hedonic treadmill. No one has. Not even the richest, most famous, most beautiful, most powerful, most educated, most credentialed, most successful people ever. Not even the caricature of success can get to the end of the hedonic treadmill.

Can you instead double down on your own neighborhood? Have you explored every street around you? Met your neighbors? Visited the local spots you usually ignore but walk past every day?

These are the kinds of things we do when we travel, yet we rarely do them at home. Do you even know what’s within walking distance of your home? Have you tried the local pizza place? Have you visited the local park?

The Myth of Elsewhere #

I used to believe travel was the ultimate symbol of cultural sophistication—the great escape, the status badge of the well-rounded. But the more I traveled, the more I realized: you can’t fly your way into fulfillment.

We are bombarded with ads and media that portray travel as the most glamorous, fulfilling, joyful experience a person can have. TV shows, movies, books—you name it—they all express the idea that travel is the epitome of human existence. And it’s just oh so good for the economy. This doesn’t match the reality of travel: airports are crowded shopping malls, hotels are soulless places that will never match the comfort of your own home. People who work in the tourism industry are often overworked and underpaid, and are probably sick of giving the exact same experience to the same people over and over again.

But it’s not the airplane that makes things magical; it’s your attention. Most people don’t need more novelty—they need to learn how to notice again. You probably enjoy travel because it’s the only time you focus on the present moment rather than worrying about where you’re going next. You did all this planning for the perfect vacation and now you’re darn right you’re going to enjoy it.

And yes, travel has its joys—but it also has its costs: the carbon, the consumerism, the fact that nobody really likes tourists anyway. The GDP might go up, but your sense of peace probably won’t.

Should you care about GDP? Numbers go up and down. So what? Having more never made me feel better. Happiness is not a number—it’s the ability to sit still and feel okay doing nothing at all. Having experienced the ups and downs of having more and less money, I can say for sure that a bigger pile doesn’t bring bigger happiness.

Meditation, Mind Tricks, and Monkey Minds #

If you’re new to meditation, it can sound abstract or even silly: sitting still, eyes closed, hands in some mystical mudra. But meditation isn’t about posing like a monk—it’s about practice. Contrary to what you may have learned from Instagram or TikTok, it’s not a performance: it’s the intentional act of sitting with your thoughts, trying to still the noise. It’s about doing it—showing up for yourself—and being present in the meditation, not elsewhere.

There are tricks to it. Breathing exercises. Yoga āsanas. Running. Long bike rides. Anything that puts your body in rhythm can become meditation once your mind syncs to it. These tricks can help you focus and quiet your mind—they’re useful tools, not crutches.

Some gurus might claim to have found enlightenment through meditation and claim to exist in a constant state similar to that of an LSD trip (as Ram Dass’s guru apparently was¹). Whether their story is true or not (I have my doubts), attaining the ultimate enlightenment is not the goal. The goal is simply to move things in the right direction. Having unattainable goals is a trap and a precursor to failure and suffering.

Music can do it. Repetition can do it. A mantra can do it. Anything that narrows attention to a single point—one phrase, one sound, one breath—quieting the rest of the static. For me, I like all of these, especially the āsanas.

It’s a bit like EMDR therapy, where your eyes follow a moving hand and, somehow, the motion helps unstick emotions. It’s not magic; it’s focus. Focus opens doors. EMDR isn’t new-age nonsense either—it works. Many people swear by it. But it’s not the only way to achieve presence.

Therapy, introspection, meditation—all can help you return to presence. Will they necessarily solve all your problems? Unlikely. They may not alleviate your past traumas. And while I find some people make too liberal use of the word trauma to describe every inconvenience, every injustice they’ve felt, being present can’t necessarily make your sad feels go away. I’m talking about sitting with whatever is—the hard stuff, the real stuff—and not letting it own you. Detach from it, and let it go, so it can’t own you.

Eventually, all of these techniques come down to the same thing: bringing the mind home.

Presence in Practice #

For me, presence is something I try to practice every day. It’s not theoretical—it’s deliberate. When I’m working, I try to actually work. One task at a time. Not multitasking, not toggling between windows or checking the news mid-sentence. Multitasking is the antithesis of presence. Humans aren’t built for it.

Presence is choosing to zero in on one thing and do it well. It’s remembering that this moment—right here, right now—might be the best it ever is. That we could die tomorrow. That every breath is a gift. It’s being grateful for the moment, for the good things you do have, and for the people (or dogs, in my case) you love.

You have to learn to sit with yourself, breathe in and out, and enjoy the simplicity of it. Let the thoughts come, then gently push them aside.

Enjoy your chair. Enjoy your coffee—the warmth of the cup, the stillness between sips. Enjoy the boredom. Appreciate the mundane things around you.

Yes—boredom. What a gift it is to be bored. Great things happen when we’re bored. Boredom is not a void; it’s a clearing, a space where creativity sneaks in. But most of us can’t handle it. We reach for our phones, our scrolls, our dopamine drips.

Delete the apps. Turn off notifications. Uninstall the sludge. All of it is engineered to pull you out of yourself. It’s the opposite of presence.

A Letter to My Younger Self #

If I could talk to a younger version of myself, I’d tell him to stop overthinking it. I used to expect results quickly—to meditate and feel enlightened in a week, to make changes and see instant rewards. But that’s not how this works.

Presence takes practice. You don’t master it—you notice it. You fail, then notice again. Step one, I suppose, is simply recognizing when you aren’t present.

The first step is awareness. Noticing when you’re doing something that doesn’t serve you. Spending money you shouldn’t. Planning to spend money you don’t have. Fantasizing about the next upgrade. Letting your brain spiral into comparison or craving. Worrying about things that haven’t happened. Lamenting over things that already have.

You have to throw yourself a rope. No one’s coming to save you. Most people don’t stick around when things fall apart—they scatter. Don’t count on rescue; cultivate resilience. Be your own hero; save yourself.

The Ritual of Returning #

For an hour—or two, if I’m lucky—every day, I get to use my body as a tool for clearing the mind. It’s moving meditation. In Warrior III or Half Moon, there’s no room for intrusive thoughts. You can’t doomscroll upside down in a handstand.

Yoga can be dialed up or down depending on your mood. You can make it as easy or as challenging as you want. There are endless variations and levels of difficulty depending on your experience, goals, and needs on any given day.

Focusing on your breath, movement, and alignment—the āsanas are a way of using your body to control your mind. Balancing effort and ease, you make it what you want. Plus, it just feels really good to flex, flow, stretch, bend, twist, hold, and release. Top it all off and round it out by lying like a corpse for ten minutes.

Yoga, for me, is a daily ritual that brings me back to the here and now. If I skip it, I feel off. When I practice consistently, I feel whole. It’s not about flexibility or aesthetics—it’s about presence. I don’t do it for the Instagram points; I do it for the peace. Granted, I suppose in some ways it makes me a hypocrite to write about it on my blog, but I’m okay with that.

Yoga might not be your thing. That’s fine. It could be running, painting, woodworking, playing music, reading, writing, tending plants, sitting on a bench people-watching. The form doesn’t matter. The focus does. And even more importantly, the consistency. Do it not because you think it impresses others; do it because it makes you feel whole.

It’s not about competition. There are no trophies in yoga class. The only prize is presence. The people who show up just for themselves—the quiet ones, the steady ones—those are the ones who get it. They’re not trying to perform. They’re just being.

That’s the whole point.

Being a Human Being #

Presence isn’t about becoming something new. It’s about returning to what you already are. It’s learning to stop outsourcing your peace to the next notification, the next trip, the next plan.

The monkey mind, perhaps, isn’t so bad after all, because monkeys are just doing what they do best: being themselves—swinging from branches, playing in the leaves, mating, sleeping.

Try doubling down on the here and now. Forget the past. Stop hallucinating about the future. Sit. Breathe. Notice. Repeat.

Be here. Be human. That’s enough.