This Magic Moment
A while back I wrote an article entitled “The Absurd Good Feeling” linked here: Absurd Good Feeling.
Absurd Good Feelings are intense feelings of well-being that spring out of the blue for no good reason. They are the experience of the joy of being alive for its own sake. It feels good just to be here right now.
The Beauty of Mundane Acts
I bring this up again because one popped up on me most unexpectedly while I was doing the most mundane of all acts, brushing my teeth before going to bed. All of a sudden this feeling of joie de vivre, this joy of being alive, hit me. I felt connected to everyone and everything. I was a part of it all.
I thought what a joy it is to just be alive to brush my teeth; an act in my 70 years of living I have done tens of thousands of times, and have never had a feeling like this overtake me before.
How could such a simple act take on such incredible profundity?
I thought about my parents and other close family members and friends who had died, and thus will never do this simple mundane act again. I felt thankful that I was still alive to do it.
Just the notion that in the whole sea of eternity, here I was at this specific moment, able to brush my teeth and rejoice in it seemed both absurd and profound.
We Will Miss Them When They’re Gone
I also realized there would come a day when I too would no longer be able to stand in the bathroom, in front of the mirror and brush my teeth. It’s an act I habitually do twice a day and never think much about. But a day will come when I will do it no more. It just highlights the temporality of our existence itself, something I fear we all take much too much for granted.
I also know that if I try to recreate the experience again by trying to mimic or recreate exactly what I did in that magic moment, it won’t happen. It was a unique moment in the cosmos, never to happen again in exactly the same way.
It was then that I realized that the experience had nothing to do with the brushing of my teeth.
It’s Not the Act; It’s the Experience
The more important aspect of the experience was not the act itself, but the profound feeling of joy and love that overcame me at that moment. I realized I needed to focus more on the those inner feelings and encode them in my being so I could tap back into them when doing other mundane acts.
It’s the feeling that’s the key. The only thing that makes it absurd is that it comes about so infrequently, and when it does, out of the blue like that, it makes it even more absurd.
But what if instead of focusing on its absurdity, we focus more on the feeling itself and the possibility that we can bring it to bear more often in other activities and situations in our lives. Then it wouldn’t be so absurd because it would be happening more and more often as a result of our increasing mindfulness and self-awareness.
I bring this up because we humans are all basically the same. We all are burdened by the psychological baggage we tote around. It weighs us down and prevents us from experiencing these absurd good feelings that tell us everything is as it should be.
But just being aware when they do overcome us, even if only in small doses, can begin to open the door to more and deeper experiences of them.
The More We Experience Them, the More We Have Them
But the quantum leap that has to be occur in our consciousness is to stop focusing so much on the activity that brings about that feeling, and focus more on the feeling itself. If we can imprint that feeling in ourselves, then we can bring it to bear on any activity we might engage in.
I’m not implying we can live in some kind of perpetual state of bliss, though I’m not completely ruling it out down the road, but for now just being able to conger up that feeling more and more in our everyday lives will pay enormous dividends in our psychic and physical lives.
Over time as we get better at cultivating and applying these positive feelings, they will begin occurring more and more often. Then the only question will be, how much bliss can we stand?
Meditate On Those Profound Experiences
But for now, just pay attention to your absurd good feelings. When you meditate call that feeling up and re-experience it. Bathe in it. It may be difficult at first, but if you stay with it, it will get easier. Gradually it will become a part of your repertoire.
After a while, you may notice nuances in these absurd good feelings. Just like no two experiences are alike, so no two absurd good feelings are alike either. Bask in each one and appreciate their uniqueness and what they have to teach you. You are not alone.
To learn more about the magic of the universe: Click this link: The Magical Universe.
