There was once a man that said that our lives are made of moments. We go through life and at a certain point in time a certain nexus occurs, a particular instant where the amount of energy is sufficient to create a lasting impression in our mind, to create a vivid memory, impregnated by the emotions of that one intense instant in time...a moment...THAT moment.
And as we go through life, we define much of ourselves in reference to those memories, that pearl string of moments of our lives; our past, our history, our life. It somewhat defines who we are and, just the same, we envision the future as series of anticipated moments to come; moments of glory, moment of bliss, of intimacy, of victory, so on and so forth.
Which can lead us to ask ourselves what truly makes a moment a moment? And one of the answers is most certainly the intensity. Moments are intense, they have depth of emotion, depth of feeling, whatever that feeling may be. Whether set in fear, exhilaration, surprise, joy, bliss, pain or suffering, those nexus are most certainly intense enough to profoundly engrave their selves in the fabric of our lives.
And truly just the same, these moments seem to have a constant underlying essential component: they have significance. Whether intrinsic or extrinsic, the significance is definitely an essential part of any moment. And I obviously mean at a higher level than purely from a semantic standpoint.
There is nonetheless beyond semantics an interesting background question. Do the moments have significance as a result of being moments per say and being the pigments that color the mosaic of our memories? Is the mere fact that they are recalled and observed as moments procuring that after-the-fact significance? A certain post-mortem rationalization? Or is it because they had significance in the first place that they unleashed enough intensity to qualify as a moment per say? Who knows? Maybe a bit from column a and a bit from column b.
Knowing that life tends to be that pearl string makes it definitely interesting to look at something else that’s very revealing: the space in between. What happens in between the moments? There usually is a succession of slightly duller instants. Episodes that will be taped over with no privilege of reruns. There’s definitely no syndication for those soon to be forgotten outtakes of our lives. No cult movies from that roll.
And it seems to me that the more rapid the succession of those moments, the more significant our life becomes. And shouldn’t that be a worthy challenge? Isn’t the task of keeping the pearls as close together on the string as we can one of life’s most essential challenge? It certainly seems that way to me.
It’s just like Michael Newman’s remote control in the Movie Click with Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken. We sometimes seem to be on somewhat of the autopilot, in transition between moments. And what seems to be in a certain way alarming is that the moments, the intense bits of our lives seem to be somewhat of a minority in the sea of episodes that constitutes our lives. The autopilot self seem to be the most present one for some of us. It’s as if we have a relatively insignificant self and then the occasional significant other self. Our own little inner day drama star, jewel and prize of our very own syndicated inner universe.
And sometimes it dawns on me that our relationship with that other significant is certainly the most determining factor in our companionship with our loved one, our spouse or concubine, the one we like to call our significant other. Isn’t it true that our relationship with ourselves is what most determines our capacity to love others and be loved? Love thyself to love others? It certainly seems like it. That our capacity for happiness, our self esteem, our love for ourselves, our relationship with who we truly are, our inner dialogues have a tremendous impact on how happy we are or potentially can be within our own skin and therefore with others.
Having taken a peculiar interest in how our moments make up the fabric of the mosaic of our memories and become the very fabric of our beings, it highlights how the capacity to multiply these moments is essential to our inner peace and finding true bliss within our inner sanctum and therefore out there in the world, at the arms of one’s true love.
So a true question would be how do we achieve the level of significance to multiply the moments? How do we push back on the autopilot? How do we reclaim possession of our universal remote control? How do we make sure not to fast forward or tape over?
One avenue definitely worthy of exploring is to simply live the moment. Quite plainly and quite simply. It’s certainly one of life’s toughest challenge. To live in the moment. Not in the past. Not in the future. But to connect with the present instant. With the multi faceted complexity of a single tic of the clock in the universe. One heartbeat at a time. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that so many ancient or modern philosophies and spiritual current point in that direction. It tends to indicate that over the millenniums we have learned something worthy through mankind’s adventure in this world and beyond. To be in the moment. Because there is so much bliss in the moment. Life is so rich and complex that every flash holds a thousand truths, a thousand joys and a thousand pains. All connecting into one profound universal truth. One significance…
Let’s try that. Carpe Diem as the Romans once called it. To seize the day as a mean of promoting more dull instants to the ranks of moments, the magical moments that light up the screen of the inner movie of our lives…
And as we go through life, we define much of ourselves in reference to those memories, that pearl string of moments of our lives; our past, our history, our life. It somewhat defines who we are and, just the same, we envision the future as series of anticipated moments to come; moments of glory, moment of bliss, of intimacy, of victory, so on and so forth.
Which can lead us to ask ourselves what truly makes a moment a moment? And one of the answers is most certainly the intensity. Moments are intense, they have depth of emotion, depth of feeling, whatever that feeling may be. Whether set in fear, exhilaration, surprise, joy, bliss, pain or suffering, those nexus are most certainly intense enough to profoundly engrave their selves in the fabric of our lives.
And truly just the same, these moments seem to have a constant underlying essential component: they have significance. Whether intrinsic or extrinsic, the significance is definitely an essential part of any moment. And I obviously mean at a higher level than purely from a semantic standpoint.
There is nonetheless beyond semantics an interesting background question. Do the moments have significance as a result of being moments per say and being the pigments that color the mosaic of our memories? Is the mere fact that they are recalled and observed as moments procuring that after-the-fact significance? A certain post-mortem rationalization? Or is it because they had significance in the first place that they unleashed enough intensity to qualify as a moment per say? Who knows? Maybe a bit from column a and a bit from column b.
Knowing that life tends to be that pearl string makes it definitely interesting to look at something else that’s very revealing: the space in between. What happens in between the moments? There usually is a succession of slightly duller instants. Episodes that will be taped over with no privilege of reruns. There’s definitely no syndication for those soon to be forgotten outtakes of our lives. No cult movies from that roll.
And it seems to me that the more rapid the succession of those moments, the more significant our life becomes. And shouldn’t that be a worthy challenge? Isn’t the task of keeping the pearls as close together on the string as we can one of life’s most essential challenge? It certainly seems that way to me.
It’s just like Michael Newman’s remote control in the Movie Click with Adam Sandler and Christopher Walken. We sometimes seem to be on somewhat of the autopilot, in transition between moments. And what seems to be in a certain way alarming is that the moments, the intense bits of our lives seem to be somewhat of a minority in the sea of episodes that constitutes our lives. The autopilot self seem to be the most present one for some of us. It’s as if we have a relatively insignificant self and then the occasional significant other self. Our own little inner day drama star, jewel and prize of our very own syndicated inner universe.
And sometimes it dawns on me that our relationship with that other significant is certainly the most determining factor in our companionship with our loved one, our spouse or concubine, the one we like to call our significant other. Isn’t it true that our relationship with ourselves is what most determines our capacity to love others and be loved? Love thyself to love others? It certainly seems like it. That our capacity for happiness, our self esteem, our love for ourselves, our relationship with who we truly are, our inner dialogues have a tremendous impact on how happy we are or potentially can be within our own skin and therefore with others.
Having taken a peculiar interest in how our moments make up the fabric of the mosaic of our memories and become the very fabric of our beings, it highlights how the capacity to multiply these moments is essential to our inner peace and finding true bliss within our inner sanctum and therefore out there in the world, at the arms of one’s true love.
So a true question would be how do we achieve the level of significance to multiply the moments? How do we push back on the autopilot? How do we reclaim possession of our universal remote control? How do we make sure not to fast forward or tape over?
One avenue definitely worthy of exploring is to simply live the moment. Quite plainly and quite simply. It’s certainly one of life’s toughest challenge. To live in the moment. Not in the past. Not in the future. But to connect with the present instant. With the multi faceted complexity of a single tic of the clock in the universe. One heartbeat at a time. It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that so many ancient or modern philosophies and spiritual current point in that direction. It tends to indicate that over the millenniums we have learned something worthy through mankind’s adventure in this world and beyond. To be in the moment. Because there is so much bliss in the moment. Life is so rich and complex that every flash holds a thousand truths, a thousand joys and a thousand pains. All connecting into one profound universal truth. One significance…
Let’s try that. Carpe Diem as the Romans once called it. To seize the day as a mean of promoting more dull instants to the ranks of moments, the magical moments that light up the screen of the inner movie of our lives…
John S Miles
2 comments:
Hi John,
Connecting with the present instant should be a constant goal. In these times, it seems harder to do. Another thing I've noticed is that this way of life is deemed weird by some - why is it unnatural to desire true enjoyment out of every possible instant, or to seize an amazing moment as it happens and not letting it pass by?
Thanks for commenting on the Naked Yak. It's a blog I write for the company I'm a part of - Naked. We're building a (sort-of) social network/messaging system that we've designed for that pure kind of in the moment expression, as well as cultivating intimacy.
I find the image of a string of pearls quite wonderful. It relates back to the designs we're doing on how you view these moments after they've happened. Hopefully we'll get a personal (private) online necklace to behold, and possibly share.
Here's to making the distance between those pearly moments as small as possible!
~biff~
Absolutely agree that it should be a goal of every moment. And you're absolutely right when pointing out that such endeavour will find its lot of naysayers.
I personally believe that the minute you introspect, reflect on something or become spiritual in the slightest way, there's always someone to find that weird. Some people prefer to just put their head down and plow through life without ever or hardly ever looking inside...
Am curious to find out more about naked and happy to hear that you found some inspiration in the pearl string metaphore...
Best,
John
Post a Comment