There is no new wisdom in the world, only old wisdom shared with our flavour.

Life is a series of moments.

One, after the other, after the other.

Most of them pass us by without notice.

Some seem to stretch out, slow and pristine.

Or slow and incredibly gruesome.

The word moment is interesting. Because it isn't a measure of time. It is a more human and less scientific experience than that.

We know now that our memories are human, too, recording not what happened but far more what actually is. As I discovered when I was fact checking for my first book, for example, this story I remembered about my teacher was not true. I carried it with me for years, what she had said about my creativity. But in the end, when I checked the school report to make sure I had the wording right, I had it wildly wrong. She was actually kind and encouraging (which, to be honest, was how she had been with me almost all the time). For reasons Malcolm Gladwell explains on this Revisionist History episode and the next one, that's not unique to me. We all do it. Our memories are not fact. They are much more human than that.

They are story. They would seem to be the best way evolution could find for us to carry what is important with us through our lives.

Although of course, like all things that are truly human, our memories don't always get it right. They carry stories forward that might be mostly helpful at the time, but that sometimes, later, become far less useful.

A moment in our life, like a story, like a poem, like a metaphor, can contain far more than you think. Far more ingredients, far more complexity, far more wisdom.

Each moment can contain that.

And as my friend David Reynolds said when I spoke to him for his podcast this week, after the first time, we are only remembering the memory.

My memory plays tricks on me with quotations sometimes. I misquote someone, and then I remember the memory. And I keep quoting it until I've embodied the first new quote.

And then, sometimes, I realise I have got it wrong.

My favourite story is about the first thing in my first book: 'Our inspiration is all around us. But it's only when we make a start that we let inspiration in.' For years I had been saying that to people, explaining that Steven Pressfield said it. But when I came to check the quote for my book, I couldn't find it anywhere. I scoured The War of Art, Do The Work, Turning Pro and the internet. But the only place, in the end, I could find it, was here. I wrote it. Inspired by The War of Art, but not quoting it.

Who, then, said it?

I thought Alta Starr said 'We become what we practice and we're always practising something.' She didn't. She said something similar, but not this.

Who, then, said it?

I thought Ingrid Goff-Maidoff said, 'God spoke to me in flowers and I almost missed it for I was waiting for words.' She said something similar, but not this.

Who, then, said it?

Life is a series of moments.

It is a series of stories, of poems, of memories, of myths, of misquotes.

Life, like wisdom, flows past us, around us, through us, if we let it. And from our mouths can come, influenced by all the moments, stories, myths and memories, words that do not feel like ours.

'Life is a series of moments' is that. I listened for what would come, those words emerged and here we are. Someone may have said it before. I may have said it. But I don't know who said it today and why.

And sometimes, the words we speak, the moments we create, are things of beauty even greater than the things that came before.

I heard Michael Neill say, once, that there is no new wisdom in the world. And that therefore all we can do is to share old wisdom, with our own flavour.

At least, it's a story I tell myself that that's what Michael Neill said. Who knows, really.

Now, it's a thing I said that he said that. It's a thing I said.

In this moment, today.

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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online. 

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