Here. Now.

I think I may have discovered something interesting and useful while at K's. It happened suddenly as we were driving to get fastfood. Out of the blue, I felt a sense of peace, relaxation and appreciation come over me. It was markedly different from how I was feeling only seconds before.

As this feeling washed over me (like a tide, as feelings normally do when I pay attention to them) I instantly tried to analyze the situation. Why was I feeling this way? I noticed something different about my thoughts. They weren't racing, swirling as they normally are - they were still, content to notice and appreciate the environment.

I was hearing the music playing on the CD player (it was The Birthday Massacre), I was seeing the colored lights of the city, I was feeling the night air. I wasn't searching or trying. Most importantly (I think) I wasn't referencing what I was experiencing to past experiences, nor was I thinking about possible future experiences. It was the simple peace of the present moment.

Is this what the Zen Buddists do when they meditate? As they say: Be Here, Now. Because I constantly reference the present moment to similar past or future moments, I tend to dismiss the present with thoughts like, "I've been down this street before," or "I've heard this song before." In doing so I convince myself that I don't need to pay too much attention to the exact moment I find myself in.

When I allow myself to pay close attention, not to the parts that make up a moment (the separate senses), but to the whole that is the mixture of the pieces, I can feel the novelty of the particular mixture. It's the difference between tasting bread and tasting butter, compared to tasting buttered bread.

I continue to experiment with this conscious perceiving. To varying degrees, I always feel a sense of appreciation and peace.

Childhood memories, color-corrected.

I don't remember a whole lot from my childhood. Bits and pieces pop up here and there now and then. It's my opinion that if these transient, fleeting half-memories surface, it's my subconscious trying to relay an important message to me - I make it my duty to, at the very least, listen. A long neglected memory sought attention by bubbling up from the depths tonight.

I work as a self-employed (a.k.a. freelance) video editor (among other things grafix, web and video related). One of my current responsibilities is color correction. At some point I was thrust back into my childhood for a split second, the event was accompanied by waves of numbness washing over my head; not unpleasant nor unfamiliar.

I was sitting on the carpet in front of the television in my childhood living room. It was dark except for the flashes of color coming from the screen in front of me. My dad was sitting on the couch behind me, growing ever impatient as I fucked with the color and contrast settings on the tv. I wanted to get it just right; a little less brightness, more contrast, more color... whoops, the red is bleeding, need to bring it down a bit...

I remember my dad asking me what I was doing.

"Fixing the color," I said.

"No your not," he said, frustrated, "Your just experimenting with it. Give me that..."

I handed him the remote control. In my head I thought to myself, "I am not experimenting. I know what I'm doing."

The truth was that, I was in fact experimenting. I didn't want to tell him that, but that is exactly what I was doing. I was interested in how I could change the tint, contrast, etc., to make the picture look more brilliant or dull and subtle at my will, and how those small changes could effect how I felt about what I was seeing.

Now I do that for a living. I still experiment and fuck with the settings. But now I've learned how each of the controls can effect the mind of the viewer. Deep contrast evokes mystery and curiosity; while bright, oversaturated colors goes mostly unnoticed by the conscious, but effects the subconscious deeply, like cartoon images invoking primal instincts that the evolutionary psychologist would link to our ancient past.

It's not often that I experience memories associated with my father. Why would I even choose to file such a seemingly insignificant memory away in my mind at all? A matter for more serious contemplation I'm sure. Either way, it's nice to be reminded that I do have a past, sometimes. It's nice to be reminded that introspection is necessary, that I'm not wasting my time exploring myself, there are genuine personal mysteries in here. Self-analysis is not just mental masturbation after all.