I've Got Plenty of Nothing

I’ve got nothing for you this morning.
 
Well, I’ve got something – but it’s about “nothing.”
 
I ran  a search on “nothing” on the Dickinson archive, and 85 entries popped up representing 36 poems – so that’s something.

The poem that jumped out at me was “How much the present moment means.”

What does the present moment mean to you, and do you tend to “live in the moment”?  If so, does that mean you have little to no regard for the future? 
 
Look at this definition and example sentence I found at Dictionary.com for “live for the moment”:
 
“Concentrate on the present, with little or no concern for the future. For example, Instead of putting aside funds for the children's education, Jane and Jim live for the moment, spending whatever they earn.” 
 
I found that to be a bit smug if not ludicrous.
 
I wondered if that were their definition of “live for the moment, how did they define ‘mindfulness’?”
 
I typed in “mindfulness” at Dictionary.com – and NOTHING popped up.  They had no listing for it – so I was back to nothing.  (LOL – their word of the day, by the way, was “Lickerish” (NOTE:  NOT “licorice”).  “Lickerice” means “eager to consume delicious foods.”

I did find “mindfulness” at Oxford:  “a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.
 
Okay, back to Dictionary.com – either the site of my computer is acting devilish (LOL – did you see my post from yesterday?) because I went back to the site and found a definition (see below).

In regards to mindfulness of the current moment, I recently ran across a quote about the nano-second that makes up the real-time present moment, and how it connects two limitless voids of time – the past and the future –  but I can’t remember where I saw it, and the closest I could find was this:  “Life is just one small piece of light between two eternal darknesses,” ~ Vladimir Nabokov from “Lolita.”
 
That future eternal darkness is why, in Dickinson’s poem, the present moment means so much to those “who’ve nothing more” (i.e., no eternal bliss or afterlife following the here and now …this is it!) – although, she too is smug in her lumping together of the Fop, the Carp, and the Atheist.   (LOL – not the fish, the Carp, but the Carp who complains and finds fault with everything).

Oddly enough, I think the online Dickinson lexicon is acting a bit devilish too.  It shows the poet’s use of “Fop” to mean “dog” when in the poem, the Fop is one who with excessive concern about the here & now (and therefore particularly vain about appearance, self-indulgent pursuits, and trivial matters).

More on all of this tomorrow.