// Days of Auld Lang Syne //

 

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot" rang through my ears a little too accurately this year, and as fireworks were ignited, I shed my annual tear or two, unsure of what I was really feeling, then with what felt like the blink of an eye, suddenly storefronts were painted in obnoxious pinks and reds. Overworked, underpaid, disillusioned partners stood in line on the cold street waiting to buy some decadent chocolates for their counterparts who likely were not in love - not really. "Happy birthdays" fell gently into my ears, and with a few tears before I fell asleep - I'd survived yet another trip around the sun. 

It's interesting how the passing of time overwhelms me now. As a child I'd desperately await an hours end so I could have lunch or get on the school bus to go home. These days I have a sinking feeling when I look at the clock and realize it's 3:00pm and I haven't done anything. Some days I want to take the clock right off the wall, but it's probably ill advised. And then I think maybe it's not time at all that breaks my heart. Maybe it's a worry that next year will be the same as this one and that this one wasn't good enough based on unattainable standards the world has set for me. Or that time is moving too quickly for me to do the things I intended to do and that when I've wasted an hour, I've lost it. And maybe those hours will start accumulating and before I know it, I'll be at the end of my life, smaller, frailer, older, and unaware that my time is up. That I won't ever get to do the things I wanted or live how I wanted as the person I really am. It's one of those things that presents itself through wet eyelashes, a runny nose and an indescribable feeling in my gut. 

I do recognize that it is a little odd that I begin each new year of my life feeling such sadness. It's privileged of me really. I can't definitively tell you why I feel that way, there's no real issue or reason to feel it or to express here in words that I am feeling it. But I have... for myself I suppose. Maybe one day years from now I'll read this and throw my head back and laugh at my melodrama or my lack of understanding what real sadness is, or how deeply one can truly feel. Maybe instead of the small laugh lines I'm slowly creating now, my face and body will be full of so many more lines that hold stories embedded in different feelings. 

Awhile back, I shared an essay by Joan Didion with a friend. It's called 'On Keeping a Notebook' and I decided to re-read it today because there's a line in there I think about all the time. "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss." I know it's a bit over the top, but the part about loss felt like what I'd tried to put my finger on my whole adult life but could not quite grasp. I have felt that way for as long as I can remember. But the admittance of that same thing makes me ashamed. Because there's absolutely no reason for it and that feels weak and nonsensical. But maybe that's what I feel as another year begins for me. Loss. And that feeling outweighs the prospects of what's to come because it hasn't happened yet. But I have been stripped of my twenty-fifth year and all of the things that happened and didn't happen and now they no longer exist, trapped in the thing we call a past, resurfacing only in my neo-cortex on occasion to release some endorphins or to block serotonin - like the tides bringing in clumps of ugly seaweed and the occasional treasure and then sweeping it away back into the vast deep sea. 

I don't really know what I'm getting at, to be honest, it's taken me nearly three months to write this. Of course, it was originally about something else and then another thing and another (x10) until it eventually became what it is now, which admittedly, is a mess of run on sentences and grammatically incorrect prose leading you through just one trail in my brain. An unkempt one. With trees fallen across the path and overgrown bushes forcing a narrow route. And an end without a view. 

I guess what I mean to say is that time scares me. It never used to. But I wish I could take the clock off my wall. Throw away my wristwatch. Never ask for the time again. I wish it didn't matter. That you simply wake up and do things how you want, and other people do the same at their pace and no one judges anyone for how long it takes to do the thing. We just do it. We just die when we die not because of old age or it's a shame because we were too young. Because if we had no regard for time, we would just be content. Never rushing to get to the next meeting on time or fashionably late to appear cool and relaxed or comparing how long it took us to achieve something. Because we did it and that's what mattered. 

So even though I feel pathetic when I cannot help but to cry on New Year’s Eve or lying in bed on yet another birthday, I guess it makes some kind of weird sense. And maybe you do the same. 

And maybe one day I'll be able to lay down softly on the sand and let the waves sweep me away like each year that has passed, lost at sea.

// What a Joy //

I returned to classes a couple weeks ago and to be honest it has been a rocky return. I feel like I’m barely even there and maybe 1/8 of my attention is dedicated to what’s going on in the classroom. Anyway, I find usually in the first week of a semester I’ll get hung up on one small thing that definitely should take an hour or less but instead takes me a week and endless reading because I can be a little neurotic. In one of my classes, we were given an assignment to interview the happiest person we know, which is a bit of an extraordinary task if you ask me. But the other small fraction was to find an article or URL link to post in the online classroom about happiness. 

This was the insignificant part I clung to. So I start googling. ‘Happiness articles’ ‘Articles about happiness’ ‘What is happiness?’ ‘Essays about happiness’ ‘Happiness essays’ ‘How to be happy’. Needless to say, my search history currently looks like it belongs to a despondent and desperate person who can’t seem to wrap their head around anything but their own despair. Anyway, everything that was coming up was stupid. I’m not going to sugar coat it – they were ugly little articles about how to begin a happiness journey or what things you can do right now to increase your happiness. Yuck. Gross. 

So the next thing I attempted was typing in a couple authors/essayists I enjoy with ‘happiness’ preceding their names. I tried Joan Didion, but I knew before I even hit search that it would be a dead end. Then I tried David Sedaris which I also knew was a desperate attempt and found an essay called Happy-Go-Lucky but after reading a few sentences remembered I had read it before, and it made me cry – and that the tears definitely weren’t tears of joy (though I do recommend it if you get a chance, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/08/09/happy-go-lucky). Then finally I tried Zadie Smith. I had picked up her book Feel Free last summer but only made my way through about half of it. I enjoyed some of her words though. After a quick search, an essay called ‘Joy’ popped up. 

In this essay, she discusses the difference between joy and pleasure and how we can experience these things in such drastically different ways. Interestingly enough she doesn’t ever really describe her joy as something as straightforward as we might imagine. Instead, she describes it as “a mix of terror, pain, and delight” stressing that sometimes joy is not very pleasurable at all. I really enjoyed the essay overall. I felt like the section where she talked about using drugs as one of her moments of joy was a bit out of place compared to the rest of the essay. Is it even considered authentic when we find joy from seeking it out? But I mostly connected with what she was saying. Joy isn’t much of a good time at all because if you’re anything like me you’re imagining that the joy will end at some point and isn’t that so much worse than anything you could ever imagine? Joy ending? 

I feel like we’re quick to imagine or say we know what happiness, or joy, or even pleasure is but when you really break it down, it’s not as clean cut as it appears. Perhaps this is a cynical view but it’s one I connect with. Smith goes on to say that joy is distinctively human. Animals will always and only choose pleasure as they do not possess the capacity to choose otherwise. And isn’t it interesting that even though we don’t have to choose joy, we still do? Even knowing the downfalls that come with it. Even the worst parts of it still mustn’t outweigh the good.

I chose this piece for my assignment because I feel like we often discuss happiness or joy without really questioning what exactly it is. What makes joy joy? Is it something we truly want or need? Or something we choose for other reasons? Much like love, I feel we don’t really know what joy or happiness is – we’re just told we should want it and attempt against all odds to find it. And that’s fine for some people, but for someone who never truly feels at peace and struggles with the idea that I probably have no real purpose here and that even though there’s no real purpose there must be a deeper meaning for everything – it’s not enough. I want answers. Maybe you do too, and if so I highly recommend this essay. 

Something else she mentions is a quote from English writer Julian Barnes that goes like this: “It hurts exactly as much as it’s worth.” I think that might be one of the truest things I’ve ever heard but also I struggle to remind myself of it. When I’m feeling lowly and sorry for myself, all I can seem to focus on is getting over the terrible feelings and wishing I wasn’t feeling them at all. And then I think back to my most awful moments - times when there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and I think about my level of creativity or yearning to actualize and how that feeling becomes all consuming. “Is joining our sorrows joy?” 

I guess all this is to say, feelings are so complicated. I thought by the age of 25 I’d have figured it out - if not in full, then at least partially. Yet here I am. In a constant battle with myself, tossing and turning in bed at night, in a staring contest with the floor in class, feelings bubbling up inside of my chest and cracking open at the most undesirable of moments. I suppose "I’m only human" will have to be my greatest excuse. 

// A Small and Brief Comeback //

I’ve been trying to write in this space again for quite some time. But all I can seem to do these days is come up with half thoughts, or ideas I know could be something, but haven’t figured out what yet. Like just the other day I was thinking about how we’re all really the same, yet our little lives are somehow still compelling. We’re all searching for love and rejecting it. We’re all wondering what our purpose might be if there even is one at all. We’re all staring up at the stars or out at the horizon from time to time – feeling a little lost or alone or at peace. We all think we’re different, but all secretly know we’re the same, but refuse to be honest with ourselves. I think that’s part of why I struggle to write here. I know it’s extremely likely that each of you have had these same thoughts and I want to write something original. But I guess when I really think about it, that’s kind of the whole point of writing – you read to feel less alone in your thoughts, and you write in hopes someone will understand you. If I were writing unrelatable words here, it would sort of definitely absolutely be a pile of trash.

I am not an artist destined for the world’s eyes, but merely an artist of my bedroom, late at night when my mind goes wild with questions and creations and dreams. I scribble words I can rarely re-read, and when I am able, they make little sense except a phrase or two. 

I am an artist to a few dear listeners who are desperate to hear the voices of those around them. Readers consumed by their empathies and need for connection; they are artists too.

I am not for the world for my thoughts are not worldly. They are stuck, cemented in the grooves of the foot trails of my feelings. I cannot forget my words from the past even though the past no longer exists. So I write about it because I cannot write accurately about the future. I am an artist of yesterday and yester-years. Bound tightly by the events I’ve already lived, forced to remember.

My words may not be destined for more than my own sclera, but I am content with that. Because I’m allowed to say I love apples this month and that I despise apples next – and have the pleasure of never feeling the cold hand of critique when I have changed my mind.

I am an artist. But I worry my art is fading. Like a candle that’s been burning too long and deep, drowning in itself, soon to go dark and cold. Instead of reaching excitedly for a pen or keyboard because I’m overwhelmed with ideas and thoughts, I must conjure up the energy to even open the notes app on my phone. My brain is a mailbox full to the brim, thoughts slipping out from the sides. Stressors mostly, fears, worries, disbelief, doubt, and a whole lot of nothing which spreads like the common cold and ironically takes up more space than any other thing in there.

I sit at my desk these days with a frustrated hand touching the place where a needle permanently etched my body with the crest of a writer. Unmistakably symbolic of who I am, now fearful it’s who I was.

I’m working on convincing myself it’s a simple case of writer’s block. But painfully aware of all the writers who die from that same affliction. This world is not curated for those of us who simply want to make something. It’s simple enough until you grow up, and then survival is impossible without severing the veins of creation. Succumb to reality, errands, paperwork, a career - consumer consumed by consumption. 

I am an artist borne with a scar of desire, melodrama, an eye for the poetic, and an overwhelming amount of sadness. I am an artist of words. My creations do not come easily anymore, and when they do, they are often jumbled and flawed. But they are mine.

// Thought #319 on Love //

Today, while at the bookstore, a very small elderly lady who looked as though I could scoop her right up and carry her away in one swift motion, asked for my help. At first, I could hear her voice but saw no one, “Excuse me miss, this frame is a 4x6 right?” Down near my feet there she sat, perched on the edge of a bookshelf. Her hair was wiry and as stark white as a sheet of paper, and she peered over her tiny frame glasses which matched her body’s tiny frame well. I took a step closer and squinted to see the label which did in fact read: 4x6. “Yes! It is.” I smiled as best I could through my mask. “Do you have any others? I’m not sure how this one works and I don't think I like it.” Now I do not work at this store, but I did my best to help. Eventually I just had to admit I didn’t work there before I dug a hole too deep to climb out of. “Oh! You just looked like a real problem solver I guess, sorry about that dear.” She laughed, and so did I. She told me how she was buying the frame to put a photo of her granddaughter in. “She’s beautiful you know - she’s in a lovely dress for her prom, and you know that was a really big deal this year. I have a picture of her in her graduation gown framed too, so now I just need to frame the other one. She’s just gorgeous you know.” Even though I didn’t know this for sure, as I’d never met her granddaughter, I believed her. 

She carried on talking about her granddaughter like she was the sun and she worshipped her. With every word, (even through her mask) I could tell her smile was getting bigger and I could hear pride filtered through the cotton hiding her mouth. I think she could’ve talked about anything and I would’ve listened. Her disposition somehow made it clear to me what really matters in our little lives. She had lived an entire life which I knew nothing about for I only met her moments ago, but after decades of inhabiting this big round rock the thing she wanted to talk about was someone she loved. So much, that she needed to tell me - a total stranger. Her small musings in this vast universe may have only been heard by me in that moment, but the feeling behind the words she spoke could’ve lit a spark in a thousand hearts. People are the only thing that really matters here in this life. See, she could have simply asked if the store carried other frames by the same dimensions, received an answer and moved along, but instead she shared a little part of her life with me, a story I hadn’t even asked for - a gift. She shared her unsolicited joy with me and even though I’m sure she didn’t think twice about it, I dwelled on our interaction for the rest of the day. She isn’t the first senior citizen I’ve encountered who shared quiet thoughts on a long life, but I’d never thought much about the other interactions. Suddenly I began to think: one day, I might be sitting at the bottom of a bookshelf, legs too old and tired to carry me anymore, holding a frame, hoping someone will tell me if it’s the right one and also be patient enough to listen to my story of the person whose photo I so desperately want to frame... 

I guess what I’m trying to say, in a very long-winded, probably confusing way, is that we should love more. I don’t just mean in a romantic sense either; I also mean platonic love and familial love and self-love. Some people have to beg for love and then go ahead and call it a gift, so if you’re lucky enough to feel loved or to love someone, don’t waste time being afraid of sincerity. Let them know, show them, write it down for them if you need to. But please, don’t shrug it off - don’t let it go unheard. Loving means being sincere which means being a little vulnerable or an admittance to caring, and I know people love to seem hard and immune to feelings to protect themselves, so when someone is sincere it scares people. Sincerity is foreign and thus often rejected, much like when a body rejects an organ after transplant. Its efforts are simply to protect us, but it’s actually killing the thing keeping us alive. So call me melodramatic but I think similarly about being sincere. It’s killing some integral part of us all to keep rejecting it all the time. 

I personally adore when people show me they love me by being sincere. I think everyone should share their heartfelt thoughts and genuine fears with each other, scream profoundness wherever they may go, allow the realest, truest parts of themselves to see the outside world. I think it’s okay if it makes people uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a step in the right direction. There’s nothing wrong with being sincere, there’s nothing wrong with loving, there’s nothing wrong with being loved. We need to start providing ourselves the allowance to tell people how important they are to us, to be generous in what we give, to be exposed, susceptible, tender. It's okay to do those things and I think when we repress feelings in the realm of love, we deny ourselves and those dearest to us the greatest joy of life, the thing we'll want to be talking to a stranger in a bookstore about fifty years down the road. People will always remember how you made them feel even long after they forget your actions and words, the love you provided will continue to pulse through their blood even when their brain fails them in old age.

One day when I die, I hope that at my funeral the feeling that pierces people the worst, is love. I know that sentence sounds awkward but as I’m sure you know, love is a double edged sword. It can hurt just as much as it can feel euphoric. I hope everyone sitting at my wake will know just how completely I loved each of them. I hope that rather than grieving a loss of life they’ll grieve the love. But also, have been loved so thoroughly that they continue to feel its presence even after I’ve gone and can give no more. This is my greatest hope but also my greatest fear, because there’s a chance they may not feel this way, and if the afterlife is real or I’m looking upon the room of people as some white sheet Charlie Brown ghost, and cannot sense that they felt loved – I will have failed every one of them, and myself. I will have failed to tell them when I loved them and I think that’s just about the worst thing you can do in this life. Something you didn’t do. To have left someone wondering until their own demise if you loved them at all. 

An act of love can change a persons life, for better or sadly sometimes worse. But even in it's lowliest form it teaches us something and makes us better at loving others. It's one of the few intangible things that nourishes us and so we shouldn't be weary of consuming it. It embraces us without physical touch. It proves to be a good home. Love embodies people and people can embody love too. Unfortunately if you came here for advice from an expert and made it through this mess of thought, you've realized you're in the wrong place. The best I can do, if you'll accept guidance about love from an amateur, is this:

Step one: Tell someone you love them today whether through a hug or a note or a picture frame you carefully picked out for their photo. Make it clear it's love you're giving them, not to be confused with something less valuable. 

Step two: refer to step one.

// Ugly Little Letters //

 I have such a terrible relationship with my phone. I love being able to pick up my little box and find out: "how much money does it cost to use a song in a movie?" (the answer is "up to $60,000". by the way, which is absurd). I love having absolutely no idea how to get somewhere and just allowing my phone to be my guide. I love being able to capture any moment without thought. But I hate how it functions to replace conversation. My anxieties and insecurities cannot withstand the lack of tone, mannerisms, deliverance, and quality. An average conversation with a friend who I've been close with for years can in a moment make me feel as though they've decided they hate me. They've grown tired of me and my act has gotten old. And there's no one to talk me down from that place. It very well could be true - or maybe I'm expanding on the smallest grammatical choice they made because I'm an over-analyzer. This is likely the case nine times out of ten, yet I'll never know for sure, because only an unhinged person would ask if everything was okay every time they felt unsure of the tone of a text. But that’s where this kind of conversing has led me. 

I think texting and instant messaging apps have drastically decreased the quality of my conversations and in some cases my relationships. I'm confident that a lot of people do not feel this same way or at least as frequently as I do; that they simply see the ease and convenience of text messages. My irrational thoughts in regard to my phone are likely the result of growing up at the same time that social media and technology started becoming a powerhouse and gaining permanence rather than being just a fad. That in combination with an overactive, people-pleasing mind so please bear with any irrationalities in the rest of this. 

Not only does pushing buttons on a screen and receiving digital words from friends make me anxious, it lacks clarity (outside of my irrational fears). I don't get to understand how you feel about what you're saying to me. A simple sentence which appears sloppy and unthoughtful might have been delivered pleasantly and with gusto in person - but I'll never know. Unless you're typing in all capitals or using many exclamation marks - and even then, that only feels like excitement to me. That's another thing. You might think using all lowercase with no punctuation feels gentle and easy, but maybe it looks careless or sad or disinterested to the person receiving your messages. We all have different perceptions of what a 'normal' text looks like, or what a flirtatious text looks like, or a cry for help, or a kind and nurturing one. Text messages do not allow the kind of depth we need to fully understand a person, unless your recipient is bluntly honest and forward all of the time. 

You can learn a lot about someone and what they're truly feeling just by watching them during conversation. Are they speaking intensely, are they making eye contact, or looking away? Are they taking pauses to collect themselves or are they rushing through the dialogue? Are their "mhm"'s genuinely confirming your experiences and thoughts or are they merely an acknowledgement that you're speaking but they aren't interested? Body language is everything. Think back to a time you were interested in someone romantically. Maybe you were on a first date or maybe you were at a party and they were completely unaware that your pulse quickened when they were near. Whatever the case may be, I guarantee you were acutely cognizant of this person's movements. At the beginning of the evening they sit a normal distance away, but as the hours passed you noticed the space between you grow smaller. They look mostly away from you while they speak, but when you talk, they can't stop looking right at you. At your eyes when you smile, your lips when your sentences weave together like lines from a Fitzgerald novel. You notice what they notice. Whether you speak for hours or only minutes, it's clear how someone is feeling if you know what to look for. By the end of the date, or party, it's likely you knew how they felt about you. But when you send a message, to anyone for any reason, there's a lack of dimension to the letters on a screen. 

There's also nothing to risk when you're behind that screen. Maybe you and a friend left each other passive aggressively earlier in the day. Well now that you're sitting during your lunch break unable to think about anything else, you take out your phone and start tapping away. You get out everything you're thinking, even the harshest thoughts and your small text becomes an entire monologue. You hit send. You had unlimited time to re-read and change what you wrote if it wasn't clear enough. There was no give-and-take like a real in-person conversation because she has no idea this message is pinging to the nearest cell tower and in a matter of seconds will appear in one lump sum on her phone. She also has no time to prepare. She's blindsided and hurt. But it was so easy to indulge in impulsivity because you can't sense after your first couple of sentences that she's beyond upset and regretful of whatever you'd been fighting about before. So you kept typing and typing until you exposed every flaw about her. Sure, this is a worst-case scenario kind of example (with sort of a terrible friend, please don't be this lady) but I'm trying to make a point. Since this form of communication allows its users to be impulsive it also allows thoughtless words and careless actions. Because the biggest "action" being taken is tapping a button on a screen. It's almost intangible, it takes no planning, no revisions of consequence. There's no need to be careful. Just fix the typo with an asterisk in another message - or don't, they'll figure it out. If you've ever tried to say something that was terrifying to say to another person out loud, you know it can feel as though there's a gate in your vocal chords that's locked up tight and the key to open it has gone missing. Then when you finally do speak - if you finally do - it feels as though you're gagging the words right up and out of your throat. But silently typing that same hard thing is lightyears easier because it doesn't feel real. It feels unattached to you - just a jumble of text flying through space to a recipient. Some aspect of identity seems to get lost in this communication. 

Why are we so accustomed to shallow conversations now? When did we decide that convenience triumphed quality and connection? Written words can seem flat and lack any sort of feeling. Which is the same reason not everyone can write a book or a script. It takes a lot of time and skill and editing and thoughtfulness to write and have your audience feel what you mean. And even then, many people may still not understand why what you're saying is meaningful, which is why even books on the bestsellers list still have bad reviews. Texting is the lazy version of prose and doesn't take long to rear its ugly head whether or not it was intentional. All this is not to say that I am quitting this addictive nicotine, because so many of my relationships are distant and if I never indulged in a text message I would rarely hear from those people. What I'm trying to say is, texting will never replace face value even with careful thought and hundreds of emojis and punctuation out the wazoo. It lacks qualities it can never possess. 

I also want to clarify; I do have contacts who rarely if ever leave me feeling confused about tone or devalued because they simply don't want to take the time. There can absolutely be healthy conversations exchanged through messages. But I think even those healthy conversations cannot keep my relationships alive forever. If I only ever texted a partner but never spoke to them in person, we wouldn't last longer than a week. That goes for any relationship - family, friends, partners, co-workers. 

I see the way phones have taken over our attention every day. And some days I think it's just the way of the world, it's just unstoppable progression because technology is the future and that's undoubtedly true, but it doesn't mean it has to be okay. I think we all ought to set time limits on our phones, we should all re-read our messages to see if we're delivering emotionally as much as we're delivering in words. Even though we can instantly respond, it doesn't mean we always should. 

I find that my device which initially was provided to me as a tool, is now a crutch. For instance, when I'm in a waiting room as soon as I sit down, I take out my phone, or if I'm waiting for a friend at a coffee shop, I take out my phone. I don't tell the woman across from me in the waiting room I like her shoes. I don't chat to the person in line next to me or anyone else. I cower in my life within my phone. I hide behind my enslaving, consuming little device. But it's so easy to enter the void, isn't it? It's so easy to retreat to certainty. Because maybe the woman with the nice shoes is insufferably annoying and talks too much. Or maybe the person in line ignores your attempt at conversation and bruises your ego. But your little machine would never do that. Your favourite apps refresh and more content than you can devour appears without limitations for infinity. There's no risk. But no risk also means no reward. A safety net doesn't allow growth, and therein lies the issue with relying on my phone in public spaces when other people are present. I also fear we've reached a place where even if I decided to leave my phone in my pocket in the waiting room, the lady with the nice shoes would be too engrossed in her own phone to notice me and the fellow customer at the coffee shop would be too busy answering emails to notice anyone else. 

So how can we build any new connections in real life if we're always in an electronic one? I want to meet people honestly. For them to see my flaws and inconsistencies and awkwardness and lack of perfection and I want to see the same thing from them. It's unnatural to have a perfect, pleasing, gorgeous identity and have others believe that's what you truly are. I think it's endearing to be messy, to not always have it together - hell! to never have it together. Why should we? We are taking every single day as it comes and learning and changing and growing every moment that passes. No one has it all, and no one knows what they're doing. So why is there this need to prove to everyone that we do? That we're content? I don't know about you, but I can't think of a point in time where I felt wholly contented. Sure, there have been moments and experiences, but overall, I have been unable to ditch the longing for an answer, for a feeling of being complete and happy. I think that's human and I'm worried that without admitting our fears and feelings and mistakes and flaws, we'll lose sight of what we really wanted, of who we intended to be. We'll stop growing. Because there's no need when you can snap a photo, edit the crap out of it, post it with a caption implying a well-rounded life, and fool everyone around you. There's no need when you can lie behind text messages because the person you're talking to can't hear your voice waver or see your cheeks get rosy. There's no need when you can avoid everything and ghost the world. 

I know I'd be naive to think technology will ever slow down. I know it will just continue to become a larger part of our lives, and that genuinely worries me. I'm not against it, I love some of my tech and geek out on a lot of it, it's super cool. I just wish human nature didn't get left in the dust, I wish there was more of a balance and that people (including myself) could break their habits and see how deeply it affects them and the people around them. I genuinely fear that forty years down the road we'll be sitting in our supercomputer chairs out in space with barely any bone mass left, more obese than ever before, drinking all of our meals through a straw, unaware of the thousands of people surrounding us just an arm’s length away! Okay so maybe that's the premise of Disney Pixar's animated film WALL-E... that movie was generations ahead of its time... But in all seriousness, I really think we're headed into a future where the quality of conversation will have withered away to nothing and face value will have no value. I also am not admitting to being some phone hating, non-user. I'm frequently on my phone and texting others, but I wish this wasn't the case. I wish I wasn't so guilty of so many of the things I described earlier. It's hard to break ugly habits and to live life as less of a consumer. But I am trying, and the small things I've been doing to stop leaning on my bad habits have made significant differences for me. I feel more grounded and more aware of my own goals, happiness, and my life as a whole. 

So the next time you're sitting in a waiting room, or on the bus, or waiting in line for coffee, notice what's around you - who is around you - and make an effort to talk. It doesn't even have to be a stranger; I see people staring at their phones while their best friend is standing right beside them. Or maybe you don't want to talk to anyone, that's okay too. Take the moment to be present. Notice you're alive and breathing, what do you smell? What do you see around you and what do those things mean to you? A moment of reflection or mindfulness might clear your head a little, give you perspective or just remind you of how spectacular it is that you've arrived at this place. So many things had to happen for you to be where you are, right now. Set your phone, laptop, or tablet down and consume the real world surrounding you right now instead of the one in your hand. There's a reason all these other people are here too. Life isn't mean to be scrolled through. It's meant to be lived.