Here’s my take on a psychological market map for time orientation and presence.
This perceptual map illustrates how individuals experience and orient themselves across time dimensions. The diagram features a vertical axis representing the degree of present-mindedness and a horizontal axis indicating orientation towards the past or future.
This framework is influenced by Phil Zimbardo; mapping how people experience time. As you move higher up the map, individuals converge toward being “Present-Present”, fully immersed in the now, like extreme athletes such as Alex Honnold.
The top half represents those primarily present-minded, with varying secondary awareness of the past or future. Conversely, the bottom half illustrates individuals who are not present-minded, instead being stuck in the past, fixated on the future, or divided between both, disconnected from the immediate moment.
The top quadrants carry higher risk and higher reward, while the bottom quadrants carry higher risk and less reward.
I chatted with Alex Honnold earlier this year at a Gradient Ventures event:
God, what a fucking gift that I found something that I love to do that I could devote my whole life to.
Context: Alex was reflecting on how rare and powerful it is to truly find a passion; contrasting himself with a friend who struggles to find any interests. Alex is the only person in recorded history to have scaled El Capitan’s hardest route without using ropes.
This is the textbook “present-present” mindset: all-in, grateful, and fully engaged with the now.
Alex on human connection:
People don't understand interest. They think there’s some magic book. It's all about human connection.
Context: Alex was refuting the notion that interests are abstract or external.
Alex on the Gradient Ventures event:
Here, literally everybody is interesting. Everyone’s doing something that I don't know about.”
Context: Alex seems genuinely curious for people. I observed him listening intently to an entrepreneur’s dating app startup. He was plugged into the experiences unfolding around him.
Having lived most of my professional life in New York and London; I tend not to get star-struck. But I was giddy to meet Alex. He has accomplished things no other human has … ever. So I was thrilled to shake greatness’ hand. I was scared he was going to death grip me 🤪, but his nice-to-meet-you grip is rather gentlemanly.
Today, I was reflecting on meeting different important-to-me people during my life and trying to assess my power of presence when I met them. For example, I was in a present-future state of mind during 2008-11 when I was working on building my startup and in a past mindset across 2012-2013 as I wound down the company and went into depression. Being in different states of mind in the aforementioned years deeply influenced how I was experiencing the world and interacting with people.
We all unconsciously allocate mental percentages across past, present and future but I don’t believe most of us stay in the same spot on the map; it fluctuates over time. One of the reasons some of us have different types of friends, perhaps, is because of where we were when we met them.
Stop your runnin' from, and start runnin' to
A destination that is gonna help your life improve
You need to realize that runnin' all the time
Ain't gonna help you check out these things in life
You need to fight and stop a hidin'
Away from all, your troubles
Cause in time, sip or two, they'll be doubled
Then what you gonna do? Breathe twice as hard for you
And I assume the runnin' will continue
-Ady Suleiman
Ruminators …
The Double Whammy
Picture the “center bottom” of the perceptual map: people whose attention splits entirely in the past-only, between the past and the future, in the future-only; the Ruminators: they find it difficult to escape their minds in order to focus on the only place in time where real action and change can happen: the present.
Ruminators loop on what ifs and if onlys rather than focus on the actionable now. As a result, they tend to miss opportunities that require decisive decision making. And by neglecting their showing up muscles they counter intuitively become less able to deal with the stress of a traumatic past or uncertain future. Thinking about problems doesn’t necessarily help you solve them but learning from actions can.
Least Reward
Since agency and progress only exist in the now, ruminators reap the lowest tangible rewards. We can’t rewrite the past or fully invent tomorrow land. Doing is better than done perfect. By living at the center bottom, you guarantee yourself the most risk (exposure to all the negative emotions of past/future) for the least reward (no ability to intervene, heal, or create). Many of us have hit rock bottom at least once so you might know how it feels to be down there. If you are currently there, don’t stay for too long.
Friendship Drift
I’ve made most of my best friendships when I was walking parallel to my new buddy. We were in the same job or MBA program; navigating similar emotional timelines; and sharing the same inside jokes. During those months and sometimes years it feels like being inside a force field with the other person: you finish each other’s sentences, order their favorite food without asking what they want, and you know what gets them anxious or excited.
As time passes, we get new coordinates forcing our move across the perceptual map: a new job, a new home, moving countries - sometimes all of these at the same time. Meanwhile your friend has doubled down on coordinates farther away. Your conversations taste like a tug-of-war: tiring and ultimately dirty.
And it doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault, though often it is. I’m telling myself that my growth depends on accepting that some bonds belong to different versions of me.
