You’d want to know, wouldn’t you?
It’s so hard to keep remembering
Join me in a thought experiment.
But please, only if you are willing to give this your full and serious attention. You’ll see why in a moment.
An aside first: I don’t need to give you advice on how to read, but you know, right, that people read in different ways? One of the most prevalent ways of reading is when the reader simply runs their eyes over the words not fully taking in the author’s full intent. You know this when you catch yourself at some point further into the page or passage when you realize your mind went to some other place completely different from the place the writer was wanting to take you, inside and along with their words, had you just stayed present. But instead, your eyes just kept going. How often do you catch yourself doing this such that you have to reread what your eyes thought they just read? Perhaps more sadly, how often do you simply keep going, even after realizing your eyes and mind parted ways 127 words ago, and yet you never go back to reread? Is THAT reading?
(I’ve been guilty of this—in fact, it’s 100% normal for those of us with brains. This is what brains do, they think, on things different from what the mind intended sometimes, even while reading. It is, however, a major clue for me that whatever I’m reading at that moment might not be worth my time. OR, I might not yet be worthy of the words there in front of me—words that are, in no small measure, inked echoes of the blood and soul of the one through whom they came. I’ve set books down that I could not finish only to pick them up later, sometimes years later, and find gold in them there pages!)
Consider, then, what you miss when you “read” like that.
THAT’s not really reading. That’s more akin to eye aerobics.
In our current world of TikTok vids, news headlines from our newsfeed apps, clickbait, YouTube shorts, and soundbites, we are “reading” and behaving ourselves out of an important skill, thus changing our brains in ways I don’t think beneficial. Real reading, serious reading, is much more active—and interactive. It’s using a pencil to underline and comment in the margins; it’s engaging with the author in a conversation they are leading; it’s intended to be an equal partnership—you the reader with me the writer; take one of us out of the equation, and the relationship falls apart (duh!). It’s keeping a running narrative in your mind that asks as you read “What’s most interesting here? What’s the writer trying to say behind the words they’ve written? What am I learning that I never knew before? What confirms what I already know? What opposes what I thought I knew? Do I agree with the writer here? How do I disagree and why? Am I loving this?
Then at the end of a paragraph, chapter, article, or book, you pause to consider again what you’ve just read, and how it is making a difference for you in your life (because, remember, as sincere Alchemists on our spiritual human journeys, we don’t waste our time on things that don’t have meaning for our lives). This means you are taking your reading, and the writer, seriously.
You can seriously read non-fiction, biography, history, and other forms of expository writing, of course. And you can also seriously read poetry, fiction, romance, short stories, fables, Dr. Suess, and “beach, brain-candy” lit.
And you can seriously read blog posts.
(I hope you seriously read blog posts.)
Just keep your heart and mind present as you read. Then ask yourself: “How am I now a different human being because I have read?”
“We are not as near each other as we would like to imagine. Words create the bridges between us. Without them we would be lost islands. Affection, recognition and understanding travel across these fragile bridges and enable us to discover each other and awaken friendship and intimacy. Words are never just words. The range and depth of a person’s soul is inevitably revealed in the quality of the words she uses. When chosen with reverence and care, words not only describe what they say but also suggest what can never be said.”
~ John O’Donohue
Now On To The Thought Experiment
If I told you that in a very short while you were going to experience a true miracle, would you want to be sure you were aware and awake for it? If I told you this thing that was about to happen to you was one of the most rare things to have occurred in the entire known Universe, ever, would you want to be sure you stopped everything around you so that you could fully experience it without distraction? Wouldn’t you think that thing, then, would deserve your full appreciation and gratitude for having graced your life?
[What could this be?]
If I told you this thing was perhaps THE most significant thing for you to experience, wouldn’t you want to approach it, then, with a deeply felt sense of awe and wonder and exhilaration? If I told you, though, that it’s not a guarantee that this rare thing will happen for or to you, would you want to know so that you could do everything in your power to be sure it happened to you?
If I told you, in fact, nothing short of your actual LIFE depends upon this thing and if it didn’t happen to you, you would cease to exist in your present human form, would you consider it, then, to be a sacred thing worthy of approaching it with nothing short of reverence? Would you consider yourself lucky then? Or Blessed? Or incredibly fortunate?
[Are you getting it?]
Would you want to know this was going to happen so that you could be prepared? Be ready? Not miss it? Fully enjoy it? Fully take it in? To feel it all, and deeply? Would you ever take something like that for granted? Something so rare and miraculous and sacred and life affirming, and both body and soul nourishing? Could you even take something like that for granted?
Yes?
No?
If I told you all of the above is absolutely true AND that it happens to you every day, in every minute—multiple times even—of your life since the moment you were born, but that no one honors it in the way you would think they should when phrased the way I phrased it above, would you believe me? Would you believe if I said this included you? That it includes me all too often as well? That each and every one of us forgets (if we even knew it to begin with) and ALWAYS takes it for granted? That most of the time, it is ignored (even to the last one)? That we think we are entitled to it even though nothing is further from the truth? And that most times it passes right by us, right through us, and we don’t even notice it, or worse, care to notice it? As if it’s not worth our time to give it its proper attention? And due devotion?
As if we forgot to remember it is the only thing we really have, such that if we don’t have it, we would have absolutely nothing else?
Would you believe me?
Yes?
No?
Hmm…
Just how important is this to you?
Let’s find out for sure then, shall we? It’s simple…
*
*
*
*
Take your next breath.
~ k
Always and Ubuntu.
🙏🏼
In a year that promises to be breathtaking, in all its painful and challenging ways, let’s remember always to breathe—not just inhale and exhale, but…
Breathe. Sometimes, that’s the only thing we can do. But we can do it, together.
Before, that is, we return to our usual “almost-remembering’, then forgetting.
Do you read me?
My next tattoo is the Sanskrit symbol for...breathe
☺️