“Taking his cue from author and painter Wyndham Lewis’s observation that the “present cannot be revealed until it has become yesterday,” McLuhan points out individuals see only the past as part and parcel of what he termed “the rear-view mirror phenomenon” obscuring the present and obliterating the future.” Judith Fitzgerald, Marshall McLuhan: Wise Guy. XYZ Publishing: Montreal, 2001. pg 3
I like the phrase “obscuring the present.” Focusing too much on the past or the future does just that. I think that we need to live in the present and to realize that it is a gift. Of course, this really does take a lot of effort. We work all our lives to get out of debt, to earn the things we want. We look back at the good times we had, or the bad times that steered us in certain directions. Most people don’t really focus on the right now. It’s about time that we all did.
