Cloudscape

Some teachings urge us to live by the principle of concentrating upon the here and now, and for many years I myself have lived by this principle. But I have come to believe that this principle is incomplete. What does it really mean, to live in the here and now?
Many doctrines, notably Buddhism, seem to urge us not to think. But I believe this is, if not inaccurate, then at least misleading: thought can be a beautiful thing. Not merely useful, but actually immanently beautiful.
For although we should be aware of the beauty there is in the world, so too there is a world within each of us whose beauty we should be equally aware of, a world, that is made of thought; a vortex of thought that can brings us from one place to another every second. It is a place where everything can happen and nothing is bound to time and space. It is a beauty we can experience just like a landscape, a landscape within the noosphere, the sphere of notions. We should enjoy its wonders just like the wonders of nature, for thought is one of our greatest assets as humans.
For what are daydreams, what is our inner world but an emulation of the real world? And if we are to live in our senses, should we not just as well live in the senses in our dreams? The sensations of our imagination are just like any other, less felt, but with far more possibilities, and if we enjoy them, they as well will grow with time. Thus, our inner world is part of the here and now just like the real world, and must be experienced just the same.
We would miss much beauty in the world if all of us had overlooked the beauty of thought. There would be no technology or science or even philosophy if we used thought merely as a practical tool, for all these things approached thought as something that is beautiful.
Thus, thought should be appreciated for its beauty for it is part of our experience. Thought is more than a tool to create beauty, for it is in itself beauty. There is beauty in our daydreams, but so too there is beauty in biology, in physics, in chemistry, in mathematics, in geology, in psychology, in languages, in everything.
This is, quite simply, because even knowledge is part of our experience. Knowledge is a very abstract construct in our inner senses. Concepts are made of imaginary sensations, which are usually visual; it is no wonder that 20% of our brain is visual cortex, because we think in a visual way. For instance, numbers each have a place in a long row in our mind, like a ruler; it may be made of the inner sensation of a ruler. When we say six, in our subconscious we may see of six dots, or a figure with six angles, or just the number six with other numbers next to it. When we say square, deep inside we see a square before us. When we say "atom," deep inside we see a nucleus with orbital electrons. If we say plate tectonics, we see the plates of the crust before us. All these things have their place in another world, a world of ideas, which is called, as mentioned before, the noosphere. Thought is mechanical. It knows space and time just like the real world, even if it is a world which is bound to no physical laws - only to the laws we impose upon it ourselves.
All these thoughts can fit together into such constructions of perfect elegance that it would be folly to state that one can find no beauty in thought, only in real experience. We should enjoy that elegance, revel in its wonderful panoramas. The beauty of thought is the beauty of connections, connections which take place in the mechanics of our inner world; if we should enjoy the touch of the wind, the smell of rain or the beauty of a forest, then we should enjoy the brilliance of a novel's plot, the ingenuity of our own bodies, the awesomeness of the giant balls of fire that show in a clear night's sky. We should enjoy the beauty of all the connections there are between all things, connections that aren't there in our sensations but which we create in our intellect. And we should be grateful for the gift to see these connections in the world.
We should live in the here and now. But even things that existed in the past or things that may exist in the future, as well as things that could never exist in the real world, can be part of the here and now within our mind. For they exist as thoughts, and these thoughts can be just as beautiful as real sensations or even more so.
But if that is so, then everything is actually part of the here and now. Does it still make sense, then, to say that one should live in the here and now? Whatever one perceives is "here and now" in that person's experience; is it possible to be not here and now, but rather there and then, if in one's mind there and then is here and now?
What is really important, then, is not to live just in one's sensations. It is senseless to exclude part of reality to concentrate on the rest of it, because then one omits part of life and its beauty. All one achieves in this way is too narrow the scope of one's existence. There is no such principle by which one can live.
There is, then, only one attitude towards life which can always lead to greater beauty, without excluding part of it, and it is to love everything in life, to love the beauty in everything, and to enjoy it. The love of beauty is the most beautiful, most powerful and most creative principle by which one can live.
Whatever one loves will grow; thus, if one loves beauty and cherishes it, it as well will grow. This just goes to show, that the sole fundamental principle in the universe is that of love: love is an act of creation. For love is that which causes whatever it loves to increase. Love is therefore the driving force of existence. Love creates, love is creation, and it is in this way that everything came into existence.
For even if that love was only present in a fundamental way before there was life, even so it was there: then, it was the love of an electron for its proton, or the love for mass for yet more mass, or the love of energy for yet more energy, or the love of complexity for yet more complexity. The universe loved itself in whatever form it was until it became what it is today, and we, as part of a universe, should love it with all our hearts so that it keeps becoming more and more beautiful until we become one with all things.

See also:
The Innerverse
Love is Immortal
Love Life

"Its astonishing in the Inner Worlds - the Innerverse..."
— Silvis Rivers, schizophrenic artist

Teachers of enlightenment will tell you to live in the here and now, and for this reason meditation will often focus on sensations, especially physical sensations such as breathing -- yet, this omits part of the here and now. For it is a mistake to think that everything that happens inside one's head, that is, one's thoughts and fantasies, is not part of the here and now.
Consciousness is comprised of two parts; the outside world and the world within - the "innerverse." However, there is no clear line between the two. They are not as such distinct, except in that one cannot affect the other unless you let it.
The innerverse, however, is by far the most complex part of our lives. Our mindscape varies constantly, much faster than our physical environment. Thoughts shoot through our heads all day, and for many people with a vivid imagination, the same counts for daydreams. Some schizophrenics know little else beyond their inner world, which is why they can live detached from the "real" world -- this may make them seem unemotional, but when something happens in their inner world, they can react highly emotionally to that: in this way they may feel as much affection for imaginary friends as other people do for real friends, while feeling little affection for real friends.
It may be important that we learn to control our inner world at least as well as our outside world. After all, how we feel depends on the former rather than on the latter. Meditation can help us become more aware of our sensations - what happens in our outer world - while hypnosis can help us become more aware of our imaginations - what happens in our inner world.
Through visualization, we can not only become more hopeful about those things we'd like to see come true, but they will also in themselves make them come true in a way -- in our (day)dreams.
There will be a day that schizophrenics will be seen as true geniuses. Over the past centuries, the innerverse has become more and more important because of art, which is basically an expression of our inner world! Music, books, poetry, movies, videogames, even science -- anything that is notional is part of our noosphere, which is basically our collective innerverse. These things become more and more dominant in our lives, especially as we slowly come closer and closer to achieving immersive virtual realities.
The Innerverse has something divine: because we are the Gods of our own inner worlds. We are almighty over our fantasy, at least the amount of fantasy we do have. The nature of our world will more and more become like that of our innerverse, until our entire universe has become like one big dream. One day science and fantasy will meet: everything we can imagine will be real, for anything we be able to conceive of, we will be able to create.

See also:
Love of Beauty