Mesmerizing…Clouds heavy with moisture…
Watching the thick grey clouds drift by the window like whipped cream across hot cocoa. Okay, perhaps not the best analogy, but they were grey, they were clouds, and they did drift. And there I sat almost hypnotized.
Please stop chuckling at the fact that so many things can capture my focus. I can sit for hours watching the flame of a candle (btw, there’s an app for that), while my mind fades into some ethereal place where time is has no meaning and meaning has no time.
It seems to be a most rare option these days…focusing. We live in a world of constant distractions, lots of noise, lots of visual and auditory input. Yet when was the last time you sat quietly and watched the patterns of the raindrops on a window, or quietly listened to the rhythm of the wind in the leaves, just sat quietly?
I went to one of my favorite thinking spots the other day in order to ponder the deep thoughts of the day, okay there MAY have been a pint or two involved. Perhaps it’s just me, and perhaps not, but my perception was this…the moment I started reading and concentrating was the moment those around me seemed to have something to discuss with me.
Those who know me can attest to the fact that I am not a chatterer. I have a strong dislike for small-talk (what is known in Southern Regions as “chit-chat”). Perhaps I am socially awkward in a dysfunctional sort of way, but it doesn’t rumple my stiltskin one iota to sit in silence.
Those who know me also will most likely confirm that I tend to get a wee bit cranky with lots of extraneous noise. One of the joys I get out of life is people watching. Observing people going about their every day lives and watching (and listening) to their interactions (if you talk loud enough to me to hear you, I will listen. Just like if you are brazen enough to show me, I am brazen enough to look).
One oddity I’ve found, and I realize there are exceptions, is that chatty people tend to shut up when they enter elevators with people they don’t know. However, the cellphone chatterers don’t stop talking for anything.
Have we lost the gift of quiet?
“I can sit for hours watching the flame of a candle (btw, there’s an app for that),” – cracked me up!
Apparently, there’s an app for whatever you can imagine. I even found one that would make someone else’s phone do some things that could cause some blushing.
Well now you’ve just made me curious …
We live in a loud word. I live with an 88 year old deaf woman and wants the TV or radio on even if she’s in another room. Then it’s blasting. Drives me crazy because I hear very well.
I think we have lost our quiet. Why, while even reading this, I had Stan Getz playing in the background, and while I thought about turning it off based on your post, still it plays as I write this.