Morning light
Golden in the haze
Of summer heat
Life inspite of that
Undoes the cord
While I sit among the flowers
Growing wider
To greet the sun
Drinking my tea
~
I have been thinking about the concept of skimming. It is something that I have been thinking about on and off for a couple of months now. Skimming seems to be the approach that the majority of us have taken to living each day. Instead of taking the necessary time to read a book, or a newspaper, or have a conversation with someone and truly listen, or any other number of activities that require patience and time to do them, we skim through – picking out only what grabs us, taking that for complete knowledge before rushing off into the world to work or play. It is a concept that is echoed in Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink – the idea that we can know instantly about something/ anything, in a blink of an eye. Instant knowledge, intuition, that can be trusted implicitly to be correct – but only if we have a solid foundation of understanding and “knowing” behind it. I think somewhere along the line, most of us have missed that part.
How much life is missed by skimming? Too much. Critical information is easily missed or taken out of context. I know this – because I am guilty of skimming, of being in too much of a rush, of being unable to find the balance that I needed to be centred – to be still long enough to deeply absorb what was being said. Skimming indicates a lack of presence – where I am no longer giving me complete attention to something – but instead have one foot of my brain in at least one other place. Thinking too much. Skimming requires a certain amount of arrogance – when humility is the key. It builds up a false sense of security – of “knowing” what is going on but never having truly walked through life feeling every blade of grass beneath your bare feet, or feeling every subtle breeze along soft curves of your arm or hearing every note of the most beautiful sparrow song….. My thought for today is to live a skimless day.
la
lei fraser 