1. Rare Moments

Some rare moments carry with them an air of absolute meaningfulness. They don't speak in words, they cannot be translated without changing them, but they can change you. They cannot be summoned, but they come with beauty and love.

That is how they appear, and how they remain with us.

It can be a sunset, a foggy forest, an empty street, or nothing special at all.

These moments take hold of you in ways that are surprising, strong and formative.

When I speak to people about such moments, they usually immediately know what I am talking about.

That recognition, however, comes more easily than any clear account of what such moments are.

As soon as one tries to speak about such moments more carefully, the language begins to slip, and it becomes hard to speak of them instead of from them.

In fact, describing them negatively, as what they are not, seems most accurate and to the point.

They come unbidden and cannot be forced, though one may, at best, be loosely prepared for them.

They resist being put into words.

They have positive impact, without being instructions, or even propositional at all.

They reorient you, like when you wander through a city, recognize a building or a corner, and suddenly realize that you are not walking west as you had assumed, but east. It's not the world that turns around then, but rather your orientation turns around and is integrated into a wider whole.

Moments are unrepeatable, and cannot be possessed or stockpiled. Once one tries to hold on to them, they immediately lose their character and become a comparable thing among things.

If their absolute meaningfulness is taken seriously, the usual ways of explaining things also begin to fail.