Message in a Bottle 22
I feel like I want to have a good cry (that’s a weird statement), but I’m not sure what about. I’m not sure what this Message in a Bottle is about. I’m just typing.
Thoughts. Incoherent. Sometimes messy. Sometimes beautiful.
Been thinking about how people (at least westerners) still buy warm colored lights even though there’s more energy efficient ones out there (I don’t know the technical stuff surrounding it). But we do, we like yellow tints and cozy feelings. I think lots of us, even if it’s secretly, like when the power goes out and we have to light candles to see.
That’s beautiful, right? Loving something despite inconveniences? Like getting caught in the rain. Or making time, real, intentional time, for God.
Life has become too convenient in lots of ways. Think of the basic skills we’ve lost just because we don’t need them anymore, because of the convenient ease of modern living. And when does it end? As technology continues to advance, incorporating ease here so you can run more there, when do we get so busy on our hamster wheels that our minds become too fast for our bodies? It feels like it’s already here.
“Keeping busy is a habit I can’t kick,” Lyrics from one of my favorite songs off Half Alive’s latest album. It’s a good one. Good enough to slow down this message and tell you to go listen.
What’s the point?
With increase of pace, what puzzle pieces of humanity are lost along the way?
We’ve been conditioned to abhor inconveniences because they slow us down. But I find I’m always at my best when I take life a little slower.
I sit here typing on my easy, convenient keyboard and a digital screen. I can delete, cut and re-paste words as easily as snapping my fingers. It’s so nice and I can send these words to so many more of you than if I didn’t have the conveniences. But what happened to when humanity was as familiar with one another’s handwriting as they were with each others’ faces? What more could you learn if these words were scrawled with graphite and my own hand of flesh, blood, and bone? The haste here, the patience there.
I continue to type and I still don’t know what I’m talking about, still have no idea where this Message in a Bottle is going. A little like this year. None of us can know yet, not really.
We make our little plans, goals, and to-dos. But it’s a big world, and I, for one, am just a little silly goober in the immensity.
Maybe I’m trying to say, instead of getting bent out of shape with the few inconveniences that still exist, we should thank them for holding us back from a pace we can’t sustain. I mean the commonplace things— traffic, blizzards, waiting in lines, downpours, minor power outages …
And maybe I’m just thinking. Yappin’. Stoppin’ in to say hi.
Thanks for slowing with me.
-Ellie
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