Moments and Memories.

I think the essential structure of life is that of a series of moments. There isn't a set amount of time for a moment, nor much of a structure. What a moment is, for my definition, is something that the mind constructs as a thing, a continual structure. So a tree is a tree because we think of it as a complete entity with boundaries.

A moment can be very short, such as the moment in the Alps of Italy were I went off the side of the ski slope and fell through the air, to what I was certain was my death. I landed in several feet of powder perhaps a second later, but that was the moment in which I understood my reaction to death.

A moment can be much longer such as the afternoon I spent with my wife on the beach at Jalapa in Mexico. We sat on deckchairs on the beach sipping beer and watching the beautiful day go by while doing and thinking very little.

Moments make up a large part of our memories, they are what we think of when we think of memories. However, think how many moments you can remember, is it an hundred? A thousand? It's a tricky question, because for a start that's not how memory works. Memory works by association, rather than being a filing cabinet full of memories. However, the amount of moments we remember is much smaller than the amount of life we have lived. We think of our lives as a continual event, but our memory of moments is sporadic and finite. What fills in the gaps?

The gaps between moments in our memories are filled with mood. If you think back to a particular time in your life there will be a flash of a few moments. Times with particular people and places. But overall will be a mood, an emotional summary of that time. I think this is really the core of what people are, and how they make their decisions. This deep-down emotional review of how we are feeling happens usually below our conscious thoughts, but is really how we feel about a place, a time or a person.

I think many people spend an unfortunately enormous amount of time between moments, wafting along on a rather uniform sea of mood. People think of moments as things in the future, goals to achieve, pre-planned memories of moments. Moments can happen at any time, this morning for me the moment was birds singing loudly in the trees in voices foreign to my childhood, an exotic sound which awoke me to how fascinating it is to be where I am. A moment can happen at any time by simply taking the time to notice whether you are in a moment or not.

A life well lived is a series of shining moments adrift on a sea of joy.

The following poem was read at our wedding by Mary-Alice, and she was kind enough to send us a framed copy of the poem as a wedding present.

Look to this day:

For it is life, the very life of life.

In its brief course

Lie all the verities and realities of your existence.

The bliss of growth,

The glory of action,

The splendour of achievement

Are but experiences of time.

For yesterday is but a dream

And tomorrow is only a vision;

And today well-lived, makes

Yesterday a dream of happiness

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well therefore to this day;

Such is the salutation to the ever-new dawn!

- Kalidasa