Take the moment

Take the moment,
Let it happen,
Hug the moment,
Make it last.

My thesis on cinema and epiphany concerns a great deal the philosophy of "the moment" - that idea of this one instant in time where something flashes through you - your mind, your life, your soul - and something in you is changed forever. It is akin (but, very crucially, not identical) to, for example, cinephilia - Willemen's notion of revelation (which Keathley also takes up) - or Barthes's punctum... this idea that there is some thing in cinema that can reach out and grab you, onto another level, into another kind of experience. In a larger picture, it is also an exploration of the transformatory, transcendental potential and power of art.

I think of this song alot - "Take The Moment", from the Rodgers-Sondheim musical "Do I Hear A Waltz", particularly as sung by Mandy Patinkin, as he is at his best - when his voice is tender, almost callow, accompanied by lovely solo piano.

All the noises
Buzzing in your head,
Warning you to wait,
What for??
Don't listen!

And so it is with epiphany, and so it is with life, isn't it? This perpetual grasping of a moment from distraction (yes, how Benjaminian) - this frantic "warning you to wait", this paranoia that something is constantly slipping by and we're not going to have enough of it and we're gonna run out of it (time! Time! I need more time to write/prepare my thesis/upgrade). Maybe we invented epiphany to delude ourselves into thinking there is this singular experience which we could get hold of, when it is really a product of our terror and fear.

Or maybe we could just stop being scared and let it all go. What for?? Don't listen. Let it happen.

Let it happen,
Take the moment
Make the moment
Many moments more!
Make for us a thousand more!