The present is contrasted with the past and the future. Modern physics has not yet been able to explain what we normally understand by the the 'present'. There is both a time aspect and a space aspect to the present. The direct experience of the present for each human is that it is what is here, now. Direct experience is of course subjective by definition yet, in this case, this same direct experience is true for all humans. For all of us, 'here' means 'where I am' and 'now' means 'when I am'. Thus, the common repeatable experience is that the present is inextricably linked to oneself. In the time aspect, the conventional concept of 'now' is that it is some tiny point on a continuous timeline which separates past from future. It is not clear, however, that there is a universal timeline or whether, as relativity seems to indicate, the timeline is inextricably linked to the observer. Thus is 'now' for me the same time as 'now' for you on a universal timeline, assuming a universal timeline exists? Adding to the confusion in the physics view, there is no demonstrable reason why time should move in any one particular direction. Adding substance to the supposition that the timeline view of 'now' may not hold the full picture, the qualities of 'now' or the 'present' in the human direct experience are very different to the qualities of past and future available through memory or anticipation. In the human direct experience, 'now' has a certain aliveness, reality and immediacy not present in our experience of past and future. Indeed, any experience is always happening 'now', even a re-living of some past event. Thus, there is a deep philosophical case for saying that the present moment is all there ever is, from moment to moment.
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