On another occasion, I was getting water from a public spigot and a couple of old hippies started chatting me up and informed me that the past and future were illusions and only the present moment was real (spontaneous metaphysical conversations are a common thing at such gatherings). This seemed extra-dumb considering we were in the midst of a festival organized around a phenomenon that had been precisely predicted years before it actually was to happen. But – it's a fairly common belief among}} mystics and it was the topic of an early Grateful Dead song, so there's that. As is my practice, I tried to find an interpretation or state of mind in which that statement would feel true.