"Everything that ever happened is still happening. Past, present and future keep happening in the eternity which is Here and Now"
About this Quote
James Broughton collapses time into presence, treating past, present, and future as layers of a single unfolding. Everything that ever happened persists because its effects, memories, and forms continue to act. The house you live in is a past that keeps sheltering you; a decision made years ago still shapes your posture and friendships. Likewise, the future is not a distant country but a field of tendencies and intentions pressing into awareness right now. When he capitalizes Here and Now, he points to a sacred quality of attention in which duration thins and life discloses its wholeness.
Eternity here is not endless clock time but the depth dimension of the present, the felt fact that experience only ever arrives as now. Mystical traditions speak of this timeless present, and modern physics has analogues in the block universe where all events coexist. Yet Broughton is not arguing a physics thesis; he is inviting a change in how we inhabit our moment. Keep happening suggests continuity and motion: the past is not dead, the future not absent, and the present not a knife-edge. Instead, consciousness is a confluence where memory, sensation, and anticipation braid into one stream.
As a poet and experimental filmmaker of the San Francisco Renaissance, Broughton explored simultaneity through montage and play. Film itself makes his insight tangible: images captured decades ago flicker alive again, not recalling the past but making it operative. His lyric embrace of joy and eros came from honoring the density of now rather than fleeing it.
There is an ethical charge in this vision. If the past is still happening, responsibility remains active; repair and gratitude both belong to the present. If the future keeps happening, it asks for choices aligned with care. To live in the eternity of the Here and Now is not escape but engagement, a willingness to feel time as a living fabric and to dance within it.
Eternity here is not endless clock time but the depth dimension of the present, the felt fact that experience only ever arrives as now. Mystical traditions speak of this timeless present, and modern physics has analogues in the block universe where all events coexist. Yet Broughton is not arguing a physics thesis; he is inviting a change in how we inhabit our moment. Keep happening suggests continuity and motion: the past is not dead, the future not absent, and the present not a knife-edge. Instead, consciousness is a confluence where memory, sensation, and anticipation braid into one stream.
As a poet and experimental filmmaker of the San Francisco Renaissance, Broughton explored simultaneity through montage and play. Film itself makes his insight tangible: images captured decades ago flicker alive again, not recalling the past but making it operative. His lyric embrace of joy and eros came from honoring the density of now rather than fleeing it.
There is an ethical charge in this vision. If the past is still happening, responsibility remains active; repair and gratitude both belong to the present. If the future keeps happening, it asks for choices aligned with care. To live in the eternity of the Here and Now is not escape but engagement, a willingness to feel time as a living fabric and to dance within it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Live in the Moment |
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