Inspiration .. or the lack of it;
Jul 14
Its almost ten o’clock on this lovely summer evening. I sit outside, in the comfortable deckchair that overlooks our garden. The dramatic, almost pathetic screams of one of our neighbors peacocks echoes eerily through the silence of the city. A pale pink moon turns its face towards the setting sun over our ever rotating planet. Light classical music plays from the speakers of my Macbook pro.. its tones reaching no further then their audience of one. The titanium (is it titanium or just aluminum) of the laptop feels cold to the touch. Something I never quite got used to after trading up from the warm plastic of its white predecessor. Stalking me, on the edge the table lies the creature responsible for my bad blogging behavior of late. Kate Mosse’s "Sepulchre". Its six hundred pages beckoning me to read them. To be engulfed by the mystery that lies in waiting of the next page turning. Of the scent of paper and ink, the rustling of the pages as they shuffle through the silence. Their story, capturing my imagination and making me pause in this mad world that we live in. Somehow, reading this book ( The Dutch version !) has reminded me of times long past.
Life on the edge of Cyberspace might be wonderful and exiting, but more and more I realize how we need to run and rush to keep up with its ever changing pace. Information, however carefully distilled and managed, still overpowers us with the daily tsunami of progress. Its pace ever faster, steps ever lighter.. Becoming more and more superficial. Closing the laptop lid and turning down the noisy chatter of interaction and interruption.. I listen only to the sounds of the world around me and notice the setting of the sun by the fact it is becoming harder and harder to read due to the fading light. As I look up, failing to pinpoint the crickets location that just disturbed me, I see how the skies pink ribbon of clouds is now but a deep purple velvet cloak. A rich evening gown before the clouds go to sleep.
Too seldom do we take the time my friends. Hidden away behind our screens, hooked up to the ever faster moving cyberspace around us .. We seldom need to look up the location of the stray cricked.. Google earth might just do it for us. Or perhaps the cry of the lone peacock is washed out by the beeps and bleeps of yet another twitter message. My feline companion feels differently about our high tech-high speed lifestyle. As he returns from another evenings escapades through countless backyards, he pauses on the porch to overlook the evening fall gently. Yawning turns around and goes inside for the night.
Tempted to join him, I endeavor to continue this little squabble, just to make my point to all of you (who by now, must be thinking I have suffered dementia) The more we slow down in the pace of life the more we sometimes enjoy it. True enough I love living on the cutting edge of technology.. And yet again.. There is no post on Digg that can ever compete with the simple joy of watching the moon rise .. Listening to the lone cricket… Sensing the sounds and smells of the coming night. My mind struggles to put the paradox of all of this into words. Somewhere someone must giggle at the absurdity of it all, perhaps that someone is me.. but .. In a world of progress and communication.. Powerful and potent. It is the absence of it all that empowers us to appreciate the simple things. To find peace and inspiration in the simplest of things. A setting sun .. a lone cricket .. A 600 page book that takes the time to tell us the story .. and that makes us slow down and take the time .. to listen.
