This line of thinking is largely a response to Spiff’s wonderings today, but that’s largely because it’s one of those puzzle pieces that has fascinated me for a very long time, one that I keep coming back to (as does Spiff). I would summarize, but I assume you can read, so go. I’ll wait…

…

Back? Okay, good. I’m not sure if you read the comments, but here was my response:

“Some moments do “just happen” totally independent of your control. You have to learn to recognize them — better, to intuit them, so that you can feel them coming and better steel yourself to appreciate them.

In fact, having said that, the best moments - the ones that most of us, you and I especially, live for — happen outside of our ability to control or capture. Otherwise, we’d be making those moments all the time, and then they wouldn’t be so special.”

To which he responded, via email:

“Yes, moments happen not only as a result of our actions, but others’ as well. But do we not choose where we are, and when we are there? It’s like the tree question: Does it make a sound if no one is there to here it? Does a moment occur if we don’t experience it? If you’re not paying attention, it’s not a moment. And I don’t mean those life-changing, euphoric moments either. If we choose them to be, everything we experience - even something as simple as typing these words on the computer - can be a moment from which we can learn, which we can enjoy, and so on. In some ways it’s a very microscopic view, but in others, it’s grand and sweeping.”

(And this is where the conversation will turn to a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle, and I will at some point walk away because all the tangents are tangled and convoluted. But since this is an intercompany blog crossover — the first of its kind, maybe? — I’m hoping that Richard might pick up a few threads and either run with them or argue with me, helping me to clarify my own thoughts. And any of you that wish to join, leave me a comment if you do; I’ll make sure that we start including you in the circle of talking.)

It sounds as though Spiff and I are sitting on opposite sides of the table here, but I don’t think we disagree at all. I’m not saying these mystical moments in life are out of our hands; I’m also not saying that they are. Rather, I think that’s maybe reducing the concept down to a binary line of examination, which is a bad idea. There are many contributing factors in the experiencing of moments: where and why and when and how you have chosen to be. What your intentions are going ahead a week or two weeks. What else and who else are in the same environment. How receptive you are to the situation, and how perceptive. How receptive other people are. Whether that butterfly you let go in Nebraska last week has made it to New Zealand yet.

Try making one of those moments — and I’m talking about the big, life-changing ones that you remember forever. It’s like starting from a fresh chess board and trying to accurately predict what the board will look like 53 moves from now against a player you’ve never seen before. Not impossible — nothing is, really — but highly unlikely, at best.

Next: does a moment occur if we don’t experience it? Yep. I can look back and realize how many I missed by being too distracted by fear. Not to mention that you’re assuming that moments are defined by us, and are purely perspective based. I think I agree there. But maybe not; maybe these moments are universal, and we simply choose to envelope ourselves in them or not.

My last bit: We are the definers of the big moments. Those moments — for me, a first kiss, or winning the Sidewrite competition, or getting lost in the solo of a song — are chosen by us, not necessarily consciously, and our definitions of big shift from day to day, depending on our tastes, our desires, our needs, and our environments. The small moments, if you choose to take a Zen approach, can be just as joyous, possibly as overwhelming (though I think that requires a need for such a feeling, alongside the discipline to recognize it). But then, you’re getting back to my view that nothing is good or bad until we as individuals define it as such.

It’s all perspective. But what is the path to adjusting your perspective to allowing the small moments to be huge? Or even to recognizing the rarity of the big moments, such that you don’t miss out on them through meaningless and trivial distraction?

Ah, questions for the ages.