I wrote this on my blog on 9 January 2007.

Sometimes this wonderful transcendental thing happens to me. I wrote about one of those instances here. They don't last for too very long, but the happiness I feel in these moments is so concentrated and specific, that I wanted to think about it more and hear other people's stories. I am calling them state schemas.

Let me rewind a little. I loved the concept of schemas so much throughout my study of Psychology that I use the term all the time, forgetting that it's not a widely-used word. Schemata (when we're talking about Psych) are a thing our brain does; a method of organizing information and our knowledge into little packages that help us remember things and interact with the world. Stereotypes are the best example I can think of, even though they are not always used in a positive way : a collection of ideas, thoughts, phrases, sounds, visuals, etc. of a certain type of person. It's one big idea that holds many little ideas together and makes sense as a whole.

A state schema is an occurence. It is a moment in which everything is in alignment - the sights, the smells, the temperature, the lighting, the music, what you're thinking about, where exactly you are, and so on and so forth. Everything fits together in that moment; it's almost like feeling you're in a movie because everything seems to fit together perfectly. Like a successful Tetris game. This seems a little synaesthetic to me, since each element blends into the next.

Now, read this entry again, if you like, and see the elements of what made it wonderful to me. I wrote about it being 8.00am. It was sunny. It was 30-something degrees. The smell was clear. The pace at which I was walking made the sunlight come through the fence to the exact beat of the song I was listening to. It wasn't about the sun, the smell or the song - it was about that stuff working together as a whole to create one instance. State schemas are one of my favorite things in the world, and I cannot predict when they will happen; they just hit me like a delightful little surprise in the middle of my days.

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I got many delightful responses to that entry. It excited me when people went "Wow! Me too!" and described instances for themselves. One person even linked me to this wonderful piece by Virginia Woolf describing the same thing. Please read it, it's wonderful. I don't mean to be insulting by trying to summarize her feelings up by just pulling one quote, but this would have to be my favorite:

some moments are so powerful and memorable--even if the events themselves are unimportant--that they can be vividly recalled while other events are easily forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences: moments of being and non-being.

At this point - 5 April 2007 - I have experienced two or three more state schemas, the most recent involving my new bike, Tony. We soared through McCarren Park in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The sun was setting - it was the golden hour. Mew was on my iPod. It was cold. I had no gloves on, and my fingers were beginning to get numb. At that moment, I was soaring.