What do I mean by Now?
I start by considering human history in 3 timeframes:
We grew to be human populations and, when we were plentiful and curious, groups of individuals went out to see what was there.
Groups met, mixed, and established ways to get along without bloodshed. Groups made rules. Sooner or later, some individuals split off and some stayed home. This continues to the present time, with swiftly growing complexity.
Each of us now has a worldview shaped by the varieties of experience, sharing, regrouping, and developing ways to get along that mark our personal ancestry, cultural history, present situation, and inspired vision.
Early humankind
Human: an individual descended biologically from the earliest population we today collectively think of as our own.
Humanity: Each time a group expanded, some went out and some stayed home. Groups going out met other groups. Groups staying home got visited / invaded /joined by other Groups.
Civilization
Diversity: Individuals tended to consider the ways their home group had come up with to get along were pretty much OK and the way things had to be — except maybe to the ones who split off.
Combination: Groups getting along in the old home ways encountered Groups getting along in other old home ways, and the merged Group developed a new set of ways of getting along.
Looking back from Now
Worldview: Think about all the wars, emigrations, migrations, explorations, religions, languages, and all the trappings of culture from which your own views were formed.
Here: From where I stand today, I can look back to the United States as it was formed in 1776 and get a reasonable idea of regular people and daily life from all that has been written, portrayed in art, embodied in law and custom, and argued about daily.
I remember: I can also remember life as it was 50 years ago when I was an adult, just graduated from college, and starting a family.
Now: And I can look around and experience life today.
Today is the Now of which I speak.
Be. Be here. Be here now.
Baba Ram Dass
RedBird at Belle’s End