”I surprised myself on a Sunday morning doing several things at the same time:
I was listening to a chapter from a book and taking notes (old-fashioned, from the generation that made reading sheets);
I had, in the background, Alexa, who was broadcasting from Radio Taormina (my shy attempt to learn some foreign languages, Italian with this radio, Portuguese with an application);
The TV in the background, to hear what else happened.
I wished I could open more tabs in my mind, to get what I need in each one, at the same time.
I remembered what a colleague told me: ‘multitasking can have harmful effects on the brain’. A prospect as worrying as the frustration of not being able to do them all at once. I know, it’s that phenomenon called FOMO (fear of missing out), it’s the trait called hyper achiever taken to the extreme and become a saboteur; there is also the growing impatience, there is also the curiosity, it is the rhythm in which we seem to be moving for a few years now.
But I remember a time when I read books on paper, in the library, 12 hours a day. In its own way, the planet spin even then, maybe I had the feeling that I have all the time in the world. But I had patience and paid all my attention to one activity. Ok, maybe sometimes we ate and read at the same time but I wasn’t listening to other discussions, with a part of my mind about what I’m going to do, what I could do or I don’t know what else.
I miss the patience I used to have, I miss the moments of respite, the moments when ‘we were catching our breath’, the expressions like ‘softly, softly, catchee monkey’. In an interesting way, the state of gossiping on a subject, the long debate, gave us more clarity, the information was different, the connections were not necessarily faster but deeper, the stories of that time remained for years.
I allowed myself to walk a lot, I offered myself the freedom to see the first flowers in spring and the first leaves that started to turn yellow, in autumn, in parks, I avoided the crazy pace of the world. I allowed myself to forget about myself and about time, I read Manuel Mujica Lainez, Antonine Maillet, Michel Tournier, Dante, Edgar Allan Poe, I recited in my mind Baudelaire’s lyrics or a scene from Racine.
Now we are all wired, as my mother says, we walk on the street with headphones in our ears, inattentive to cars, people, trees, caught up in emergencies, speed, trends.
I don’t know if we’ve become more sophisticated. I would like it to be like that, I’m afraid it isn’t. In a way, I think that the patience, the respite, the pleasure of being lazy with a book, in the sun or in the shade, of chit chatting and not gossip, about the daily activities or adventures of so-called celebrities, all this it gives us a certain inner freedom, it create an internal space favorable to creativity, dreaming, creating lasting neural connections.
From time to time, productivity, efficiency, deserves to be replaced by the catharsis given by art, book, nature, dreaming, quality music, moments of loneliness or together, for our deep spirit.
On the weekend of the Florii, my mother drew my attention to the song of the swallows that had made their nest in her yard. She was happy, their chirping relaxes her. I smiled and thought, ‘Who else listens to the chirping of swallows today?’ Maybe we should all take time, relax, stop the world for a while. At least now, for the holidays, so that we can be even more efficient.”
via: spotmedia.ro