Synchronicity
I awoke on only day 3 of the 30 days of silence. Reading the days passage from the Science of Mind I noticed the stack of books on the night stand clearly. Each of them with bookmarks deep into the pages. All more than halfway complete.
As the days run commenced I was having circles of thoughts. Not enough, empty, fear of lack… not uncommon in the mind of an introspectionist on a run. Today though by the end of the run I decided it meant I didn't have enough books for this 30 days of No social media, no music, no writing.
An outing to one of the last remaining Barnes and Noble existing in Las Vegas which consequently is a new install in an old Banana Republic store.
Now it's at an outdoor mall place which holds a bit of nostalgia. There used to be this sub sandwich shop there which made wild combinations of meats but every sub had some exquisite unique sauce and most of them a heaping pile of micro green sprouts. This place Johnny McGuire's is long gone, 6 years or more. But I searched a sandwich shop just for the vibes and found one on the way.
Something I didn't consider in the process of a no music challenge was that inevitably public places all have music. As I stepped through the doorway, awareness snapped to music. Show me, Show me, Show me how you do that trick.
Definitely on the right track today. My experience with what I've jokingly come to call the Musical Algorithmic Divination Machine is that it has never once been entirely wrong. Sometimes it's simply wrong in the way I first interpret it.. The irony of the song title Just Like Heaven being the first song I heard in 3 days is not lost on me.
The sandwich was great but on to what I presumed would be a long book store search for just the right titles to fill my 30 days. Finding parking at the outdoor mall can be challenging and not knowing exactly where the store was located I wasn't even sure which parking deck to check.
Turns out I found a spot five spaces from the elevator. The doors opened at the bottom, and directly across the street, the book shop. I was excited and full of frenetic energy cause it was going perfectly.
This next part makes almost no sense without a bit of history. Explaining it sorta loses it's luster for me but there's no way for most of you to know I've been following John Green and the Vlog brothers since late 2007 and used to watch John on BlogTV writing and testing out new chapters of his Paper Towns novel. Nostalgia indeed but also I've read all his books since and watch the films too.
So yeah YA Fiction. Whatever, he is a very interesting human and I enjoy his prose in video or written format. I can handle a different genre than I typically read to support someone I care about. However he did release a book titled The Anthropocene Reviewed where its essentially non fiction reviews of life experience. He showed the cover many times in his videos. I'm very aware of the colors and also kinda ashamed I haven’t purchased a copy or even read it digitally.
I gingerly stepped from the blazing 103° Vegas outdoors into blasting 65° AC in the store. Immediately there are 2 children and an older gentleman in my path. Im kinda forced off to the side aisle and trying to appear comfortable, not annoyed or awkward I walk towards the first table in my trajectory.
There it is front and center, those intertwined lines in gradient of purple and orange. I'm so taken by the synchronicity that I literally photographed the table. Yeah that's me documenting the signs, my camera reel is a plethora of stuff I can't even remember why I took the photo much of the time.
Turns out thats not the best part. Through this whole journey and emotional roller coaster the past months I kept returning to the same question. What does it mean to be human? This all started because I felt seen. I placed my positive dude attention into the world to live fully and somehow it echoed back with a force I never expected. It didn't answer every question though it woke me from a strangely banal existence. Life was vivid again.
And thus another book on that table. David Brooks - How To Know A Person “ The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen”. Yes THAT David Brooks, the Defiant Humanism guy. The video I was so captivated that I posted it on X back in mid may and spent like 3 days discussing it with chatGPT. I knew I was done shopping 10 seconds into the trip but it took me almost 8 more days to muster the courage to open this book.
It sat on my nightstand as an artifact which I knew contained something I wasn't ready for yet. Each day I’d read the title, then the subtitle and gently set it back atop the stack of books.
On day eleven I spent most of the day going back and forth with chatGPT about an idea for a video series where I use my garden footage and put science of mind meditation treatments in visual words over it with some soothing music. I got really excited as through this challenge examining words has become a nice place of solace for me since I'm reading so much. Anyway I thought of like 6 words from the past week I could deeply examine and write scripts.
The afternoon wore on and evening in front of the television ensued. Irene had on The Boys Season 2 and all of the graphic nature/violence was getting to me. I sat with my head down in my hands to not see another head explode on screen lest it be my own.
She asked what was wrong with me. I began to explain an emotionally introspective day and how I had an idea for a video series. My excitement begging for performant enthusiasm, instead she appeared tired or disinterested. I felt slighted, let out a deep sigh and dropped my face back to my hands. She said “If you are uncomfortable then maybe you should just go read a book”
As I walk slowly up the stairs imagining the tears welling up. Instead a wide grin appeared on my face. She was right. A calm happiness washed over me as I knew what I had to do. I snuggled to the bed and opened the cover I had been a avoiding for a week.
I made it exactly 11 pages….
