I can understand this philosophy. And I say so as a “Westerner,” with some – happy – surprise.

It is a generally used pattern (maybe too simple?) to say that there are two different concepts of time: the “circular” Asian one, where time runs slowly and brings us always again back to where we were; and the “linear” European one, much influenced by the experience of the nomadic tribes of the people of Israel, who always move on from one place to another, and therefore also from one point in time to the next in the future – placed somewhere, on a small section, on the long line of time, running from the past through the present into the future. That is how I see my life in time.

This historic experience of the nomads forms also the basis of the Christian understanding of time. I mean, in a deep sense, which nowadays is often completely covered, becoming invisible, by superficial forms of what has developed mainly in the USA (and spread from there) as the “fundamentalist” trends which, during the time of the two Bushs, gained even strange political influence.

You are also with the nomads’ sense of time:

‘“Someday” never comes.’

You do not expect that this “someday” will just come – there is always something more in the future (not just to wait for) but to extend to it in hope, and when it seems that one goal is reached, there is already the way ahead to another hope to move towards.

‘“I could have done this”, “I should have done that”, these are kind of feelings I want to avoid, it’s bit difficult though.’

Such looking back does not allow us to move back and re-do what we may have missed. It may lead to a passive attitude: “Well, maybe the chance will come around again, just wait.”

As you said: ‘If I’m waiting for the “someday” happening “something”, then I should make it happen, otherwise, it won’t be coming.’

You do not have a circular understanding of time, when you say so. But you try to find your way, in the dynamic understanding of time of the nomads: it is always NOW that we live and act on this line from the past into the future.

But the nomads of olden times did not move in isolation – as it is better to move together sharing hope, helping and advising each other how to make the next steps from today to tomorrow.

Those who just wait can do so sitting alone, because time runs in circles and there is no notion it may end. And that is what one gets from it if it does not end:

“if life won’t end, the life must be very boring.”

Never so for the nomads, living NOW and searching and discovering always the next goals to move to.

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The flowing of the stream never stops
And it is never the same water.
The foam that emerges
Disappears again without a trace.
It is the same with the people and their lives.
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I am not blind not to see this – but i feel free TO LIVE in the time in between which is given now – before the bubbles in the water and the life of the people disappear again.

You said “My life could end today, I could be dead 10 yeas ago, I might live 100 years, so talking about ages doesn’t make any sense, I feel.” Sone touri. Some bubbles are newer and others are older, they are still here together at the same time.

I am happy to share this stretch of time, it is the life we have. It is not much useful to think of the water which is already gone (“I could have done this”, “I should have done that”), or to think that the future stream will also flow away. But we live now. With every tsunagari we allow to grow in this time it makes our life so good and rich – but the time is short: “Life is not long enough, every single moment something new comes up and makes me feel living long as much as possible.” Not long “enough” if we want more than the present we have. But new things come up which can make us feel so rich that we want to live it longer than we can.

Because he knows that the foam and bubble will disappear, 鴨長明 gives up in akirame (?) – Quite to the contrary, I am happy to live know and share this with you, as long as we have the time. Quietly, no aseri, happy to live what we can live now.

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