These pieces are very repetitive, very constant: there are no surprises for the body, and so the brain kind of checks out. That’s when you get into a state of harmony with everything around you: that’s the moment when what I call “liquid knowledge” comes to you.

I believe that universal knowledge is everywhere around us. It’s only a question of how we can achieve that kind of understanding. Many people have experienced moments when something in their brain says, “Oh my God, I understand.” And those moments feel so rare, but the knowledge is always out there for the taking. You only have to tune out all the noise around you. In order to do this, you have to exhaust your system of thinking, and your own energy. That’s extremely important. You must really be exhausted, to the point where there’s nothing left: where you’re so tired that you can’t take it anymore. When your brain is so tired of working that it can no longer think — that’s the moment when liquid knowledge can enter.

That knowledge has been very hard for me to win, but I have won it. And the only way to win it is by never, under any circumstances, giving up.

— Marina Abramovic Walk through Walls