Press pause to reboot

So

It is a sunny Thursday afternoon in the shire a little before 2:30.  There is literally not a cloud in the sky, and the sun is streaming though the windows of my hobbit hole as a gentle breeze stirs the hedges in the garden.

Some days it pays to be still. To watch the wind and listen to the grass. There are many things I could do, and I'm sure many more that I perhaps should.

But for now they can all wait.

I've become very aware that the space I inhabit is increasingly virtual these days, be that online or just in the furtherest reaches of my own head. My world has shrunk almost beyond measure from it's previous expansive proportions. Although since the mind is essentially limitless the irony of that paradox is not entirely lost on me.

All the inherent leisure like distractions in modern life err towards artificiality, whether that be via games, films, videos, or other online stuff, the one common thread is that they all promote a situation wherein one removes one's self from the reality of the present and projects into, or onto something else.

But on occasion I don't feel entirely inclined to that escapism: sure, we all feel the benefits from time to time and who doesn't like watching a well worn story or "blowing shit up" every now and then. Years back when Sony brought out the playstation (The first time) and gran tourisimo was orginally released, I clocked up a staggering amount of hours on that console, and completed all the tracks, the 100 lap races, all of it. I probably (still) know the laguna seca track as well and anyone who has "actually" been there.

However none of that time on the playstation actually achieved anything. So it is perhaps with the online and virtual worlds of today. A whole heap of data, just sitting, waiting to be discovered under that blinking cursor, or search button. But does any of it actually achieve anything?

No.

Any achievement comes from what is done with any given data, and the actions that result.  Of course if one mis interprets that data those actions may well be .... questionable, which is why we humans sometimes get it wrong.

But thats ok. Getting things wrong is just a stepping stone to getting them right.

But every now and then the system needs a reboot, a pause, and time to listen to the wind whilst watching the grass.

So today I feel like spending some time "with me" as it were. In the present, being present. Here. Now.

As for the rest...