Being “In The Moment” is one of
those Zen-like concepts that seems readily expressed these days, for the promotion
and enhancement of personal awareness, in relationship to just about anything.
However, like most philosophical insights it’s real nature is about as
difficult to grasp as it is to nail Jell-O to a tree... in a forest where no one
is present, to hear whether or not the potential timber yells “ouch!”
For anyone who has ever been “on
stage” for a theatrical performance, act, speaking assignment, skit, solo,
concert, or similar event being presented to an audience, the heightened levels
of sensory consciousness generally experienced bear vivid testimony of a very
tangible, and keenly focused vitality that is frequently generated. This ethereal
essence augments the particular talents being utilized for the event and assists
in conveying the artist’s message more powerfully across the footlights. The performer,
if skilled sufficiently in harnessing the dynamic, becomes “the moment” with
each note, gesture, word, or flourish; and onlookers, willing to temporarily
suspend their personal realities for the cost of admission, vicariously embrace the magic.
The performer captures the
moment; the moment becomes enchanting; and those of us in the plush velvets are caught
up in the bubble of emotional euphoria being generated. This is the
invisible, sparkling opiate that hooks thespians to the boards and seals their common kinship with each other.
In a separate form, a master archer
is able to envision an arrow piercing a target’s center mark within the same
instant he or she withdraws it from a quiver and notches it in a fluid, full
draw and release motion of the bow. Years of self-discipline and keenly focused practice
permit the warrior to become “one” with the event; having compressed the
individual coarser segments of the act into a singularly perfect, combined moment
of purest thought and movement.
In the wisdom of Yoda and early
80’s Cinemasophy this would translate as “Try not. Do, or do not. There is no
try.”
During circumstances of extreme external stress or trauma, either our perceptions, or the properties of time itself
seem to change dramatically. The shift occasionally permits us to view and
experience otherwise instantly occurring events as slow motion, drawn out, and intimately
inspectable, micro-second slices, which give the illusion and overall effect of
being “in the moment!”
Can you imagine then, if our awareness
was somehow “quickened” to the point where time ceased entirely?
Actions and their consequences
would be generated within identical points of existence, while a paralleled
decision to initiate the action in the first place would be correctly
determined WHILE the button is being pushed. Talk about being “In THE Moment!!”
This non-time fictionality could
then be easily extrapolated backwards from our reference point to the specific
nano-fraction flash of existence; when the so called “Big Bang” may, or may not,
have taken place. Within that slivered wafer of potential eternity, all
possibilities of reality both in advance of, and post advent of the mega-boom
would co-exist in some mystical realm or another. And, of course… the fact that
you and I are currently able to experience any of this, in whatever rippled
status we have somehow been caught up, must mean we are part of the whole
shebang.
Are we perhaps then, not only “IN
The Moment,” but also co-equal witnesses OF it?
Somewhere off in the distant expanse of possibilities do we have the
potential of not only being the actors, but also the audience of the plays we
are currently producing?
And now that my brain is in
synaptic hyper-drive, I believe I could really enjoy a bowl full of Jell-O. J.
Article Copyright J. Michael Lyffe - 2014
as a performer I strive to be in the moment, also to be in the sweet spot ... where the audience and the performer enter a tribal experience ... The actions and thoughts of the one impact the other. It doesn't happen often, but when it does - we are, indeed, co-equal witnesses
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