A thin film

In Transparent Things Hugh Person considers to himself that if you could stop worrying about what the future had in store then he wouldn't worry so much about mistakes of the past. The story discusses how impossible it is to keep your mind in the moment.

"When we concentrate on a material object, whatever its situation, the very act of attention may lead to our involuntary sinking into the history of that object.Novices must learn to skim over matter if they want matter to stay at the exact level of the moment."

Person explains that “immediate reality” is but a “thin veneer” over the past, and it’s much better not to test “the tension film” of this reality. Most decisions are made by the repercussions of past or future events. There are few times in life where the "moment" seizes you and you are able to float along the film of the present without deliberation or bias. Hugh Person's past haunts him at every turn, but he still seeks it out. It may be because it is what he knows and it doesn't take him to far off the beaten path. This idea reminds me of the definition of apocalypse given by Frye. An apocalypse is the way the world looks after the ego has disappeared. Person's ego has kept his mind from transcending to the level where time, past and present no longer matter.