---
layout:	post
title:	"Frenetic Scribblings #18: Living in the moment"
date:	2017-12-19
---

  ![](/img/1*YogBihLw4GFgg1FugiGgUg.jpeg)Photo by [Gabriel Barletta](https://unsplash.com/photos/XNb5Jtx2Yl8?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)As outlined in [a previous piece](https://medium.com/@aronajones/minds-eye-blind-93509e102fe), I have a blind mind’s eye.


> I don’t see mental images. It’s incredibly difficult to describe what I do see, but certainly not the vivid mental imagery that I’m told others experience.Something I idly wonder about fairly often is what it would be like to see life from someone else’s eyes. It sounds crazy to me that people see *in their head* in even a similar way to how they see reality — as it no doubt sounds crazy to those of you that can see…that I can’t. Nevertheless, I will attempt to describe the experience of seeing from my perspective.

When I close my eyes I don’t see anything.

Just blackness.

If that sounds terrifying to you, that’s because it kinda is.

I don’t have memories in the same way other people do. I have incredibly poor recall to begin with — I often half joke that if a fact doesn’t stick the first time it never will. In particular I’m notorious for forgetting where I put things. I can’t retrace my steps to find whatever it is I’ve lost because I can’t picture them in my head.

So yeah, it sucks. Sometimes it sucks hard. Good memories fading away into a haze or being unable to recall scenes in the first place, is a genuinely soul crushing feeling.

But it’s also an opportunity.

I live moment to moment. Spontaneity wasn’t in my nature, but it’s grown on me over time from the fact I don’t really have…a memory. Not in the same way other people have described theirs anyway. It’s difficult to truly know. But it’s shaped my life philosophy more than I usually realise.

I can’t look back longingly at the past, because it’s lost.

I can’t look speculatively in the future, because I can’t picture what it might be like.

I can only look at what’s right in front of me. The here and now.

Like many things in life, it’s both a blessing and a curse.

Either way, there’s nothing I can do to change it, so all I can do is make the best of it.

**I do this by wringing every ounce of experience out of every damn moment that I breath. I’d vehemently encourage you to do the same.** Even the overwhelming majority of you out there with unclouded minds eyes.


> Thought for the day: Charles R. Swindoll — **Life** is 10% what happens **to you** and **90% how you react** to it