Beautiful moments are seen not in hurrying, but in slowing down, in wandering. Circular thinking happens all too easily, while the fragments of thought that are open to the immeasurable form incredible patterns.

Generalizing, making circular thoughts out of thought fragments, is a normal, popular and boring process. At the same time, in life, only moments are beautiful: scraps of time and thought. I used to think about this line sung by Ryszard Riedel [of popular Polish blues rock band Dżem – trans. note] by way of circular thoughts – thinking that only some moments in life are beautiful. I thought there were more ugly or neutral moments in life than beautiful ones – as if, in the ocean of moments, only now and then would you come across nuggets of amber or other precious stones. I thought there were only a few such moments to be found in life. For a long time, this was how I interpreted the line about beautiful moments, while to me, the words “that’s why it’s worth living sometimes” meant that it’s only worth living for those times when a beautiful moment comes along. It’s a quarter of a century since I first heard Dżem’s song. In the meantime, I disregarded its message as a rock ‘n’ roll cliché and locked it away in the deepest corner of my memory, from where it recently emerged with renewed strength. Yesterday, out of the blue, I told a moment that in life, only moments are beautiful.