Edward Frenkel

But in fact, it's not something mystical.

If you think about it, when you're really absorbed in something,

Time does stand still.

And then you look at the clock and it's like, oh my God, two hours have passed.

And it felt like a couple of seconds.

When you are absorbed, when you're in love, when you are passionate about something, when you're creating something, we lose ourselves and we lose the sense of time and space for that matter, you see.

So there is only that which is happening, that creative process.

So I think that this is familiar to all of us.

Yes.

So then there is a point of view that this is where we are.

We are who we are at our fundamental level.

And after that, the mind comes in and tries to conceptualize it.

It's like, oh, because I was writing something.

I was writing a book, I was painting this painting, or maybe I was watching this painting and got totally absorbed in it, or I fell in love with this person.

That's what happened.

But in the moment when it's happening, you're not thinking about it.

You're just there.

And imagine that to make it really catch-22.

Imagine that our minds are set up in such a way that they can't approach the world or experience otherwise.

So in other words, to understand, to see that from a more kind of all-encompassing point of view, we have to step out of the mind.