Virginia Woolf is recognized as one of the great innovators of modern fiction. Her experiments

with point of view have influenced many writers that followed her. But one particularly

interesting technique that does not seem to receive much attention is her use of "moments of

being."

To wonder why some moments are so powerful and memorable even if the events

themselves are unimportant that they can be vividly recalled while other events are easily

forgotten. She concludes that there are two kinds of experiences: moments of being and nonbeing.

Woolf never explicitly defines what she means by "moments of being." Instead she provides

examples of these moments and contrasts them with moments of what she calls "non-being."

Moments of non-being appear to be moments that the individual is not consciously aware of

even as she experiences them. She notes that people perform routine tasks such as walking

and shopping without thinking about them. This part of the life is "not lived consciously," but

instead is embedded in "a kind of nondescript cotton wool".

It is not the nature of the actions that separates moments of being from moments of nonbeing.

One activity is not intrinsically more mundane or more extraordinary than the other.

Instead, it is the intensity of feeling, one's consciousness of the experience, that separates the

two moments.