Recognition

From the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (trans. Maxwell Staniforth):

'Fix your thought closely on what is being said, and let your mind enter fully into what is being done, and into what is doing it.'

Every once in a while, in exhaustion or in ecstasy, a truth like this will spit forth. It may come in words; it may come in an image; it may come as an intuition, a congruence; however it is dressed, it will come. Essentially, you know that you are both alone and not alone. That nothing you do is important, and that everything you do is critically important. That the instantaneous present is where the world is to be found, that the past is where the world is to be found, that the future is where the world is to be found; that the past, future and present actually coexist; that there is no then and now. You are your ancestors and descendants both. Pretty tame insights, yes, except when they fit mind and circumstance. Wisdom is a process of recognition.