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1 min read Presence

Schrödinger's wellbeing

How would you *know* when you were present? 🤔

Schrödinger's wellbeing
Photo by Luku Muffin / Unsplash

You know the famous Quantum Physics thought experiment – Schrödinger’s cat, that is both alive and dead at the same time?

No, I haven’t got the foggiest either, but it’s got something to do with the very act of observing an object or situation changing its nature.

(Over-simplification, I know. Don’t @ me.)

Then one day, the phrase “Schrödinger’s wellbeing” popped into my head and I started chuckling to myself, because it strikes me as the same.

I often quiz my clients, when they’re complaining that things are persistently rubbish, with very little let-up:

🤔
How would you know when you were present?

It’s like a Quantum Physics thought experiment itself, or a Zen kõan – an unanswerable question.

Because the very act of observing presence, means you’re not present.

Presence is the absence of the mind; the absence of analysis and categorisation.

Riddle me that one, dear reader!

🤔

So, here we go…

What if… we are actually present to life a lot more than we ‘think’ we are, because—by definition—it’s only when we’re not, that we notice.

Have fun playing with that one today!

💟

Giles

p.s. I reckon presence is the most normal, straightforward, even boring thing going and the only reason we make such a big deal out of it is because of the mind trying to understand its own absence. Can’t be done!