Life is full of moments, some very precious and others we would rather forget. So, what is this thing we call a moment and how can we make the most of the ones we have?
In medieval times a moment of time started with the moving shadow cast on a sundial. The time between sunrise and sunset was divided by twelve hours. As the hours of daylight changed with the seasons, the length of an hour was variable. Each hour was split into forty momenta, or moments, which were around ninety seconds each in modern currency.
A moment is a useful conceptual abstraction that we use to make sense of our experience. Like the moving shadow on the sundial, what happens is a continual flow of the present moment. Like all living organisms, humans are subject to the passing of time. If we imagine standing in a stream facing the oncoming current, we exist in the unfolding present, which flows behind us into the recent past and future moments are moving towards us in the distance.
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