Our dubious ability to ruminate, blind to everything happening around us, is sometimes downright aggravating.
Fifteen years ago, when I first read THE POWER OF NOW—yes, the original title is written entirely in uppercase—I found the whole idea laughable.
I haven’t fundamentally changed my opinion since, but I’ve come to understand that the world we live in is meticulously engineered to alienate us—and it succeeds, daily, in inventing new ways to keep us from ourselves.

That’s why the ability to be contemporary with the present moment—to be in actual contact with the now-moment—is rapidly becoming one of the most neglected human skills.

But how does one exit a certain state?
One that politely—but insistently—invites you to keep ruminating?

I’ve come to believe that there are privileged places where such an encounter becomes possible. The encounter between you—and the now.

And I’m thinking of a filthy toilet.
Irredeemably filthy.
The kind that seems to have been used for years by someone who regularly dined somewhere near Chernobyl. The kind that hasn’t been cleaned since 1988.

The air is so corrosive, the experience so viscerally traumatic—even if it lasts no more than twenty seconds—that your clothes begin to change color, and your skin starts undergoing irreversible genetic mutations.