Where do you place your attention: on what is happening, what is about to happen, or what just happened?
Various teachers tells us to focus on the Present. Eckhart Tolle, for example, seems to have virtually trademarked this idea.
But every present moment is always already a past moment, isn’t it? William James meditated long and hard on all this in his Principles of Psychology. If I do a podcast, I will most likely do a deep dive on that chapter, on the self, or sense of self, and on the difficulties in defining what we mean by self, and personality, and individuality.
But if the present is already the past, I am going to suggest that the best life place to be is in eager anticipation. There is enthusiasm in anticipation, excitement, engagement. As a kid, wondering what is under the tree is almost better than unwrapping the gifts, and PERHAPS IT IS.
In sex, the lead up, the seduction, the preliminaries, are always, in my experience, more memorable than what I will call the denouement, the finale of Bolero. Bolero lasts a good long while. The finale, not long at all. (Can I note it was obviously written from a male perspective? From a female perspective, we could have had multiple finales, building on one another. I propose this new piece be called Bolera.)
So this puts you in the front of the wave of perception, in my analogy, surfing endlessly into a future you cannot predict, but have already leaned into.
One more idea, hopefully of use to someone.