For the writing of this text, I turn the sound off, then I decide to pause the tv show completely. I write this, instead, while listening to the rain repeatedly splash outside my back door. While listening to the cars drive by. These sounds not only tell me it’s raining, but give me a fair indication as to how heavily it’s raining.
It is raining quite heavily.
This does not happen often, which makes this (these sounds, this light through my windows, the cold in the air) quite delightful. It’s not something I’ll have to suffer through, it throws off no plans of great import. It is sounds and smells and sights I do not see enough to become inured to. I am not so young anymore, but I experience rain infrequently enough to still find it an occasion worth experiencing.
Experiencing in that I will stand out there, I will listen for a moment without my eyes open, I will look for a moment while ignoring what my ears take in. It is something I can experience on its own, without scrolling, without several other things in my awareness that are calling for my attention.
I would like to look at pictures this way. I would like very much to be able to see a picture without comments or favorites or likes, without things above and below it. I think it might be a better way to look at pictures. To listen to music. To watch television.
I think we may have started to get it wrong, and I have been thinking thoughts like these for some time.
But it was not until I turned off the tv show, turned off the music, and began to pay attention to the sounds of the rain that it all came together in my head.
I think we may have started to get it wrong.
