Almost all enlightened masters and spiritual texts stress on us to always 'remain in the present moment'. If we always remain so, how do we recollect certain timelines, such as appointments, meetings etc fixed earlier, but due now?

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Enlightenment expands the mind, it doesn’t contract it. You don’t ‘lose’ anything, except that which is false, which was never really true in the first place. One retains access to time-related brain functions. What’s lost is one’s attachment to time, their identification with temporal events.

For example, occasionally, I can be late to an appointment. The present focus is on getting to the location of the appointment. Because this is front-of-mind, I feel the pressure to get there as fast as can and I respond to the pressure. I have a fast car, I like to drive fast. I also like not to get into accidents. This coordinates into a rather fun episode where I get to express my individuality in this task of moving my person from here to there.

Once I’m there, the episode is over, and I focus on the next task, which is getting from the car to the lobby. If I’ve been there before it’s simple. If I haven’t it can get complicated. COVID means I often have to find a phone number and call someone who might be standing twenty feet away from me, which is slightly annoying.

Throughout the day, there’s an intense amount of detail that runs through my mind, I have to pick and choose which particular details to communicate. Because my mind is exploding with activity all the time. Forgetfulness is an issue, which I will often use tools to manage. Reminders, timers, that sort of thing. These allow me to not have to use my mind to do it, which is annoying.

Mind is addicted to novelty, mine no less than anyone else’s. That little sense you get when you’re being forced through something that bores you, I have to manage that feeling as it’s constantly happening. Generally by pushing attention to something that I haven’t seen before.

It’s like watching a TV show for the 30th time. You know all the lines, all the plot points, all the punchlines. So little things occupy your attention. For me it’s often intonation of voice. There’s no way to meaningfully change what’s about to happen in the next half-hour or so, so my observing mind is usually working in overdrive while my task mind is on autopilot. If I’m playing a game, then my task mind might go into overdrive if I’m getting pushed hard. Even playing fighting games or ping pong, I’m rarely pushed that hard, I’m either observing heavily in order to understand novel dynamics, or playing to someone else’s level.

Annoyance is when my mind isn’t free to roam and wander as a mundane task is demanding attention. This causes me to raise energy, which I can direct in lots of different ways. Expressing anger is fun, so I’ll often do that, especially if there’s no anxious people around. I currently live with a very anxious person so I have to watch it. Or I’ll direct it into a “super-observation” mode and often come to insights very very fast.

But ultimately, the bottom line is, I don’t feel any sort of anxiety, certainly not over any temporal matters. It’s all redirected into more ‘productive’ forms of expression. It was like this even as a kid. I had school with projects and due dates, and I never sweated it. Didn’t get the best grades, but I never stressed over it.