There are certain incidents that have the power to radically change one mood to another. Think of being depressed and lonely. There are seemingly few things that can help us shed the feelings that take hold of us. "Getting over it" is not as easy as changing our Joy Division t-shirt to our Hello Kitty t-shirt. It often takes either the gradual accumulation of certain small events, or the arrival of a fairly large startling event to shift ourselves away from loneliness. As an example, consider the following: from out of nowhere, a good friend you have not heard from in some time surprises you with a visit or phonecall. The sun now feels warmer and the heart lightens up. An occurrence such as this helps us far more than that trite remark quoted above. These surprises are like sudden shifts in the weather that transform one state into another. Moods can be thought of as similar to the weather in a way that is presently useful to us. The warm air, the cloudless sky, the gentle breeze--these are the elements of the weather. The weather itself is the totality of these things. Likewise, moods are the totality of the elements of our experiences that collect or accrue in the course of a day. The great taste of that coffee, the relaxing of the body, the feeling of satisfaction--these are the elements of the good mood. The mood is, like the weather, the complete whole. So when a sufficiently strong element such as a high pressure system forms in our daily lives, it may lead to our "emotional weather" being in a state of stagnation--a state of boredom where nothing happens. We find ourselves busy doing nothing. Just like when a meteorological element rolls into another weather pattern, the shift from one state to another may be either swift or gradual. In either case, we can be assured that a change is on the way.

As we now return to Re-l's experiences, we can comment further on them and combine them with more insights. With our understanding of moods, we will use it to see how Re-l herself reacts to such conditions as they fall under her boredom. As we had passed by Re-l's boredom-amplified anger (her scolding Vincent for him having a non-plan, as an example), we noted its volatile character and how even the weather can cause an outburst directed at whomever is present. (We will notice toward the end of this essay another significant outburst with a different character, however.) Whatever falls in its scope is subjectively tainted by the mood, e.g. when responding to Pino's questioning if the slice of bread tastes good, Re-l can only tersely comment on its flat, old taste. Her sense of taste picks out elements which appear most prominent to her. This bread is stale bread and these beans are--sigh--they just are, and nothing more. Since eating is something one has to do everyday, this too is located toward the center of the shadow. Thus, it too does not escape unscathed. Somehow, the seemingly essential qualities of our experiences of eating and drinking are never fully realized to us. Or if they are, which is more likely, they come with something else which seems to hover over and above the essential qualities. It's like the sweetness of cookies has another mysterious property that cannot be fully put into words. Nothing seems to taste right because something else is acting on them. Thus, it may appear that some things are blocked or muted by a bad mood, because something else is intervening on them. We notice that Re-l's intervening boredom has this power of selective concealment, covering certain things and not presenting others. Because of the nature of some debilitating states of mind, we too may not be entirely sure if some things are not presented to us. It could be that we just do not notice some things; in a way, we are blind to them. In any event, only some things are clearly revealed to her, and most of them are unexceptional or trite. This is especially true when Re-l does not attain any startling, new insights into Vincent's nature--only more frustrating, shadowy enigmas. There is something there, or so it seems, but it's too distant or hazy to make any sense of it. It remains at the edges, never coming close enough to Re-l's grasping intuitions. Her thoughts, instead, are filled and occupied by mundane experiences occurring day in and day out, like clockwork. For good or bad, they are immediately there for her. Yet, she cannot entirely help it if she experiences things in this way, for she herself is subject to this oppressive shadow. She is the one who has to experience the bland food, the terrible weather, the stifling ideas--they are her experiences of how things are. While we might question how we the viewers can know her subjective experiences--i.e. not ours--we can safely assume that there is an essential commonality we share: we actually know what boredom feels like, when someone says that she is bored. As such, we had taken it upon ourselves to appreciate what it would be like to be in her situation, to have her experiences. In fact, the entire episode does exactly that, and we are here examining what follows from it. We noticed, as did she, how some things manifest themselves differently under certain conditions. Whatever is located toward the center of someone's mood tends to be heightened whenever it's experienced. As the immediate object of attention, a certain sensation, feeling, or thought can display something which is noticed in one mood, but not in another. Having now seen how moods can affect almost anything that occurs within them, we are ready for the next crucial step: when a mood and its elements work in such a way that they reveal an opportunity for insight.