While walking down a lane, we sometimes spot something that stops us in our tracks. A song that gives us goosebumps. A painting we cannot walk away from. A few lines of a poem that seem to know us better than we know ourselves.
In those moments, time feels to slip away, and we sense a change, like being fully here and, strangely, somewhere else entirely. We do not always have words for what just happened, only a quiet feeling that it was important. Creative people have chased that feeling for centuries, and thinkers have tried to describe it for a long time.
Thomas Merton, an American monk, described the whole experience in a single sentence many years ago. Let us dig in to find out.
Quote of the Day
Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. - Thomas Merton
What Does the Quote Mean?
At first, this might sound like a contradiction. How can we possibly find and lose ourselves in the same breath? But anyone who has ever been swept up in a piece of music, a film, or the simple act of making something knows exactly what Merton meant.
To find yourself means to discover yourself. When we paint, write, dance, or simply stand before a great work, hidden parts of us rise to the surface: feelings we bury, truths we avoid, a sense of who we really are beneath the daily grind. Art becomes a medium that holds up a mirror, and sometimes we recognize ourselves in it for the first time.
But the losing part is the opposite, yet just as important. When we are truly lost and engrossed in the beauty or meaning of art, the noisy, self-conscious inner voice goes quiet. We stop checking the clock, stop worrying about how we look, and stop being a separate I watching from the outside.
The beauty of this perspective is that these two things happen together. We come home to ourselves precisely by forgetting ourselves. Letting go is what lets us arrive.
Why Does This Matter Now?
We barely notice ourselves losing and finding amid the rush of daily life. We live inside a constant stream of notifications, comparisons, and highly perfect images, endlessly aware of how we are being seen. Our attention span is limited, and our minds are rarely allowed to settle. Anxiety and burnout have become background noise for millions.
But art offers a rare way out. Picking up a guitar, sketching in a notebook, getting lost in a novel or a gallery: none of it has to be good or productive. The point is getting lost, and the brief escape from self-monitoring quietly restores us.
