drmstream[writing]

Expe­ri­ence presents a con­stant puz­zle: the fullest sense of expe­ri­ence is to be wholly in the world, immersed and accept­ing of the things that we encounter, sur­ren­dered to the moment.

To share these moments requires tremen­dous art. You can’t force mean­ing, say to your­self that you’ll use this tech­nique or that tech­nique to mimic some­thing of the same feel­ing, or that you’ll trade your skill to make some­thing that a per­son will oohh and ahhh at with­out being moved, or that you’ll spill out your guts with­out ever get­ting below that sur­face and say, “Look, that’s what I felt.”

No, you have to sus­pend your­self in the place between being inside and out­side the moment, and hold your­self there for as long as it takes to cap­ture the moment’s essence.

The most beau­ti­ful pieces of art accom­plish that surrender.

Look closely at this photo. It is serene and unstud­ied. It is not pro­fes­sional, it is not ama­teur. It is cap­ti­vated by the moment. Expand the screen to focus on the petal. A small gnat is fly­ing in the air, a speck of black made minis­cule by the rich col­ors and the soft mag­net­ism of the sun.

We are invited into the moment too, being given the oppor­tu­nity like the gnat to sus­pend our­selves out­side our­selves, to expe­ri­ence a change. The offer is quiet. The artist will not be offended if we hurry on. But I sus­pect he would feel a moment’s regret if he saw us pass by, because we would have lost the chance to be part of the quiet majesty of the beauty he sees all around.

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