Andrei Jebeleanu

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.

And so, I find myself obliged to grant my father a mitigating circumstance for every book he ever managed to read. It’s the kind of excuse you might extend to someone who’s spent their entire life with nothing but George Minois’s Histoire de l’enfer on the nightstand, Cannibal Corpse in their headphones, and Kim Ki-duk flickering eternally on screen.

The only time my parents ever truly hesitated was when I told them I wanted to become a journalist. It was my mother who said:

• “It feels like you’re rushing into this. Journalism strikes me as a distraction — and investigative journalism… well… like a dangerous distraction. Have you considered a more stable, academic path? History, for instance, is a discipline with dignity. Your father would have been proud.”

Out of respect for them, I chose not to argue.
Out of respect for myself, I chose to ignore them.