On cutting to the chase and morii

Trying so hard to be in the moment that you lose it entirely. Oh, yes, we’ve been there.

That’s the tension I keep coming back to. The wanting to be in the moment and have the moment at the same time. To experience something so fully while also somehow keeping it. The frustration of wanting to muffle the moment into a little ball and put it in your pocket… but you can’t. It’s a push-and-pull I’m sure many relate to, especially those who have made a habit of paying attention.

Let’s dive in.

The word

There’s a word for it, actually. Morii. (Very cutesy word.)

Coined by John Koenig. First on his website, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, before it became a whole book dedicated to feelings that had no name yet, which I cannot help but love. He built an entire dictionary out of the gaps in human language. That alone is something for us to treasure.

So, back to Morii. He defines it as “the desire to capture a fleeting experience.” Not quite nostalgia, not quite grief, but something in between. A deep appreciation for an experience precisely because it is already leaving.

In the same category of feeling, I’ve also found avenoir, the wish that memory could flow backwards, that you could know now what you’ll one day remember about this moment. Or another one: mono no aware. The bittersweet ache of beautiful things passing. All of them are about reaching for something that feels like clouds, like mist, slipping away through your fingers.

The reach

Once you sense that a moment matters, something kicks in. Almost an achy, ‘pulled’ sensation. The realisation that this light, this walk, this soft, hazy spring sunset won’t come back exactly like this ever again. A kind of urgency. And so, you reach for something. Your pen, your phone, your camera, the person next to you. You try to hold it, give it a name, fix it in place before it’s gone.

But in that reaching, I’ve already moved. And the moment is gone.

Well, shiiiii.

I stepped out of the moment to look back on it, rummaging to get it back. And now I’m documenting something I’m no longer fully having. I’m physically there, but something has shifted. Hyper aware of the moment, I know it’s a certain kind of distance.

And then the urgency fades, and you let it go, until the next moment arrives, and the whole thing starts again. Going along thinking: ooh, I really need to savour this, it’s just so wonderful. Rather than spending more time with that idea than the thing itself. You know?

The walk

These are photographs I took on a walk the other day. The light was doing its thing in the late afternoon, slowly unravelling that golden glow. The kind that makes an ordinary path look like the embodiment of spring.

I knew the tension was coming because I’d already brought my camera. You never know which fleeting moment you’ll want to catch before it’s gone. Except at the end of the path, just before turning back, I stopped. The sun was seconds away from disappearing behind the last trees, and I was... just there. In it.

But even that, I caught myself narrating. Now, be in the moment, too. And then immediately: why did I just tell myself that? I was already in it. The reminder slightly undid the thing it was reminding me of. So that made me feel ridiculous about the whole thing. I brought the camera. I put the camera away. Both felt equally self-conscious, catching myself being mindful and ruining it a little.

The chase

And so, that’s perhaps the real chase, right? Not just after the moment, but after myself inside the moment.

Am I present? Am I aware? Is this what it feels like? And does asking that already mean the answer is no? Or can you move past that brief check-in fairly quickly, without it unravelling the whole thing?

Because those questions are the thoughts that create a kind of distance. At the same time, they’re a reminder. The moment I ask, I’m already slightly somewhere else. No wonder it feels a little like losing your mind. Running at life, arms out, trying to catch something that moves just a bit faster the closer you get. I keep hearing Basil Fawlty in my head – “Is this a piece of your brain?” – because yes, a little. It’s a bit like that.

The quiet

Writing about it doesn’t solve it. Then again, it doesn’t need solving. It’s more of an acceptance of the chase. The tension doesn’t resolve, it lives with you, this gnawing, restless thing.

And maybe the most we can do is recognise it, even find a strange comfort in knowing it’ll always be there. Knowing it’s the lag of the senses. Conscious awareness always one step behind the experience. The brain prepares the action. The recognition comes after the feeling. The words come after the recognition. 

And somewhere in all of that, on that path? I was still there.