I mean, making art is about objectifying your experience of the world, transforming the flow of moments into something visual, or textual, or musical, whatever. Art creates a kind of commentary.
—Barbara Kruger
Whether pivotal, fleeting or fractured, we crave, create & dwell in moments—not sweeping extravaganzas. Could be a moment of horror or a gift of grace. But like a film editor, we string the moments together across time & space and channel what we make of them. How we pace them, place them, intersect, overlap or splice them. Fester on them or dignify them, sepia tone, colorize or crystalize them, float them in beams of moonlight or zap to erase. We can slice them into fragments of fiction, celestially imbue them with vision(s), add sensuous textures and deep bass sounds, intellectualize, analyze or simply absorb their magnetic illumination. Enter the flow.
This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can. . . reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that’s what I mean by ‘Hallelujah.’
—Leonard Cohen
In almost every moment something or someone withers or dies of excess or deprivation, extreme heat or extreme hate. Someone makes a misstep and the haters pounce. Demi-god operatives whip up zeal with a crimson torrent of lies—fervent followers swallow the sticky elixir. In only a moment someone is fooled or someone’s the fool.
It takes only a moment to escalate wars—for power mongers to obliterate & annihilate—to cling to palace balustrades & glide in black motorcades. Meanwhile weapons proliferate. Serial deniers obscure facts, twist truth and dismiss basic math. Last Sunday marked the hottest day on earth, until the next day, when Monday took the prize. More to follow—
At any moment your screens may explode with a lethal cocktail of revelations & reversals. Even AI chatbots can’t keep up.
We do not remember days, we remember moments.
—Cesare Pavese
A courageous comeback can transform into a dazzling display. And in a decisive moment, an underdog may rise from the cauldron like the Olympic balloon—blaze into the night sky & spread rays of hope.
But moments don’t arrive like the metronome click of an IV drip. They flow in waves, rush by in forceful currents, upend like swirling rapids, plunge like waterfalls, soar like gusts of wildfire winds—or remain moored in the doldrums. History can rearrange in a moment. Your life can change in a moment.
Sometimes we wait forever for moments to arrive. But It takes only a moment to doubt, to hesitate—to look back too soon (or too long), to miscalculate or surge on reckless impulse. It takes only a moment. A moment you will never get back.
So, what if we sagely chance it—albeit infused with intuition & insightful intel. What if we focus on the intrepid “me” in moment—act on the lure of expansion, the buoyancy of freedom & the ecstasy of truth—act on what we already profoundly know. What if—
Maybe only a moment / May be the time of your life
—Justin Townes Earle
What’s your moment?
This morning, my manager sent an Eminem quote in an email, “Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity. To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment. Would you capture it or just let it slip?” And then I saw your beautiful words. I always appreciate them. It never fails to feel like kismet when they arrive. It’s because you have your finger on the pulse of things.
Recently, I went to see a (bad) production of School of Rock, watching someone doing a bad impression of Jack Black, and I was reminded of all the moments I’d missed. I went to high school with Jack Black and watching this was like nothing resembling art attempting to mimic life, and slapping me in the face. I’d missed so many moments that I couldn’t even keep up with Jack Black. Now, I couldn’t even keep up with an incompetent replacement…sour grapes much?
I appreciated the question, “What is your moment?”
Because it’s right now.
The perfect moment is now. Embrace it and recognize the power of choice.
If only I could recognize the moment meant for me, hold on to it, extend it, expand it …
Susan