None of us live forever.
I grew up with idioms. My Irish mother would often remind me, "Stop and smell the coffee (or roses).", or "Consider the lilies." I would hear this peripherally as a mere set up for her final instruction to slow down, and not worry so much.
I wonder now if I missed something important, more vital.
Maybe paying deep attention to small moments of beauty, the ephemeral, serendipity is the work.
I guess Mom was encouraging me to slow down, appreciate the beauty of life, and enjoy the present moment. To break from my busy schedule and hectic life to appreciate small joys.
Mom at age 99.
Wendell Berry provides a haunting reminder in his poem, "The Vacation":
Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.
He went flying down the river in his boat
with his camera to his eye, making
a moving picture of the moving river
upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly
toward the end of his vacation.
He showed his vacation to his camera,
which pictured it, preserving it forever:
the river, the trees, the sky, the light,
the bow of his rushing boat
behind which he stood with his camera
preserving his vacation even as he was having it,
so that after he had had it he would still have it.
It would be there.
With a flick of a switch, there it would be.
But he would not be in it.
He would never be in it.
Twenty years ago the internet was an escape from the real world.
Now the real world is an escape from the internet.
Johann Hari warns, “The truth is that you are living in a system that is pouring acid on your attention every day, and then you are being told to blame yourself and to fiddle with your own habits while the world’s attention burns.”
It's possible to look and not see, to hear and not listen. The act of paying attention is a discipline.
The good news is that our neuroplastic brains get good at what they do. We wire our brain for deep attention by paying deep attention.
Here's something to maybe try: Take a 20 minute vacation every day. Go for a walk, talk with a friend, sit quietly with a cup of tea ....and pay attention to everything around you.
You brain might just start to feel younger.
Beauty can offer healing. Paying attention, even to fleeting moments, is deeply restorative.
Thanks for reading,
Terry
Remember, you are a genius!
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What am I reading right now? "Stolen Focus - Why You Can't Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again" by Johann Hari {A wake up call!}
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