| it's come to my attention ...well, not recently. that'd be a lie. it came to my attention, ages ago and has been a long time crystallizing itself into a coherent idea, that life moves. fast. this, i realize, is not news. this is fact. every year of your life is fractionally reduced on the whole. when you were five, a year was 1/5. when you're 25, 1/25. and so it goes. likewise, the earth rushes 587 million miles around the sun every year. that's 67,000 mph give or take. and how do we, humanity, respond to all this haste? with urgency! we rush. get up, grab coffee, speed to work, meetings, phone calls, email, lunch, phone calls, errands, dinner, bed. replay. even seeing family and friends is a tightly scheduled event. the conversations pre-programmed. the smiles customary. everything routine. we couldn't tell you what the coffee girl was wearing or what color hair the guy in the suv at the stoplight next to us had even if you asked... which you wouldn't think to do anyway. we see everything. we notice almost nothing. and so it goes. (yes, i borrowed that from vonnegut.) insincerity has become an artform. not because we're malicious, but because we're thoughtless. we cheat others, we cheat ourselves. and in doing so (completely unintentionally), we make the time feel shorter than ever. stop. be present. see people. actually, see them. make eye contact. hear the guy getting your coffee. "want room in that?" answer. a real answer. no, routine. "nah, i'm good. thanks. more caffeine the better this early. but you guys must've been here by 5am to open up." engage people. it's stupid and it's small and it's simple. and it makes every second. exist fully. be present. |
