stillness is beautiful

hii, welcome back ! (๑>◡<๑) 

holding a steamy cup of coffee, staring out the window, listening to the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves.. it’s in small, fleeting moments like these, that an odd sense of fulfillment and contentment can be found. when we stop running to our next task, refreshing emails, nervously anticipating that one phone call, and we can just.. breathe. it seems like nothing, but now, it’s a luxury. being able to slow down in this world of rush and overconsumption is a privilege unfortunately not available to many, and even more so with the plummeting of the economy and the seemingly inevitable fall of many societies. 

i myself am a victim of this, as many others are. i find myself stuck in front of a screen, whether it’s for studying or free time.

our attention spans are absolutely fried from short form content and social media, no matter how much you swear you aren’t. i love reading, i always have, since i learnt how to read.

but, it’s not the same. and it never will be. no matter how much i love reading now, i will never experience being eleven and coming home from school to sneak up to my room, and read the book i thought about all day at school, and devour pages with such vivid imagination and focus that drowned even the sound of my mother calling out to me, where i wasn’t in my room anymore but i was living through the eyes of the main character, thinking like them, heart beating erratically at any hint of a plot twist, feeling the wind in hair that wasn’t mine. staying up, tiny fingers flipping through the pages, ignoring the 5th grade french homework i had, too immersed to even remember this wasn’t my life.

i still read, i still live through the character’s eyes, experience the book— but it’s not the same, and it unfortunately never will be. i had no devices at the time, there were only CDs and flip phones with the snake game on them. i read one to two books per day, summarized them, fell in love with each one of them, and never forgot one. i spent more time at book stores than any other. 

i do hope to somehow win back that childish curiosity i once possessed, and that is my greatest wish. and growing up is realizing that it was my biggest gift. i was constantly reading and writing, having written a 200 page novel at age 12, a thriving imagination not yet sullied by the world’s cruelty and meaningless fast-paced content addiction.

i have been doing more research and watching long documentaries lately, desperate to win back my old curiosity and hunger for knowledge. the progress is slow but it’s there. i no longer check the comments while watching 20 minute documentaries, i read about any word that i don’t understand, i research what crosses my mind and take my time with it. but i still spend a lot of time on social media, and i still feel incredibly bored without a screen, and i do not read as much as i used to. but i’m working towards it, and i have hope that i shall get there someday, and soon. 

a slow life, filled with dreams and knowledge, is the epitome of existence.