nestled in every passing second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, there are infinite mōments unfurling right in front of us, begging to be discovered. some look common, while some look chaotic, but, if you peel back a few layers, hit pause, and take a breath, there's beauty lying just beneath the surface of everyday life.
mōments discovered is an ethōs. it's a mindset. it's a way of existence. it's a guiding north star for my artistic experiments. i leverage this mindset to challenge myself to continually hunt the quiet. quiet is not only captured while expeditioning four days and three nights into parts unknown, quiet can also be found just around the corner at the end of the road, if you know how to find it..
mōments discovered is, in essence, a tool when all the cruft is boiled away. and if the tool is used skillfully, possibly even more skillfully than a camera or a paint brush or a microphone, the mōment will reveal itself ripe for discovery regardless of how heavy or cool or high-end the kit used for said discovery.
by adhering this ethōs, i can adventure every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of my life. i can "adventure" down my block. i can "expedition" to the other end of town. i can "journey" to the neighboring city just over the mountains. no matter the distance traveled to hunt the quiet, when you believe that the quiet is all around you, just waiting to be discovered, hidden among common mōments, you'll find beauty everywhere. during the simplest, most mundane times, or during the chaotic, most hectic times, beauty will poke its gorgeous self up from belōw to timidly whisper, "peekaboo". however, its not always that easy. i find that i must listen intently, and without ego, to hear it..
no discredit to those who travel far and wide to hunt their quiet or discover their mōments. the explorer mindset is necessary to continue the regular expansion of the cōllective consciousness of humanity. please keep stretching your boundaries. please keep pushing your limits. please keep exploring the uncharted. i know i will.
as a matter of fact, i regularly and passionately seek out far flung destinations but, when i arrive, i'm almost always immediately yet subtly reminded that someone was already there. someone came before me. someone found this mōment in the past, maybe even the recent past. after a 17 hour travel day on planes, trains, and otherwise, it's deafeningly humbling to realize that someone beat you to it. especially, when they were probably from the neighboring city just over the mountains, or from the other side of town, or from just down the block. our highly anticipated adventure is their stroll. our well-planned expedition is their commute. our week-long journey is their day trip. ultimately, this all too frequent collision of two opposite yet like minded worlds (i.e. when the expeditionist meets the local) can gift a level of perspective unattainable otherwise.
akin to that old colloquialism: "one man's trash is another man's treasure", one man's trip-of-a-lifetime is another man's daily existence. while i'll never stop traveling to far flung regions or seeking those rare experiences ōnly expeditioning can embed in one's memory, the above realization taught me something invaluable a few decades ago: actuate locally and beauty will reveal itself in places once tossed aside as normal or boring or commonplace. there are mōments to be discovered and quiet to be hunted all around us, everyday, all day.