Details,
Details, Details
“Have
you experienced that distinct, unique feeling you get when you actually see
something and feel the immediacy, the depth, the texture, the permanence, the
uniqueness of this usually familiar environment. As [Milan] Kundera said, truth
lies in details—in the way the weathered board is streaked, in the
particularity that makes things alive and real to us, even though we seldom are
consciously aware of those qualities.”
Drs.
Thomas Patrick Malone & Patrick Thomas Malone, The Art of Intimacy, p.80;
Simon & Schuster, 1987)
Most of
us, myself included, go through our days automatically obscuring most of what
is around us. We live in our thoughts and sometimes spend long stretches of time
unaware of our surroundings. Some things are so familiar that we suspect there’s
nothing we do not know about them—both objects and people. We believe our assumptions
of who or what they are to be correct without noticing their uniqueness. More
and more, I realize just how much of my life I have missed simply by not
noticing details.
A
friend told me yesterday about a dinner I had with her and others at a
five-star restaurant here in Birmingham—it was my birthday, and we were
celebrating. I’ll be honest with you, I have no memory of that dinner except
for a vague glimpse of the upstairs balcony on which we were seated. I don’t
remember who was there or which birthday it was or anything else. I don’t know
about you, but I don’t go to five-star restaurants often—in fact, I can count the
times on one hand. So, you’d think I would remember such a special event, but
because my body was in one place, and my mind in another, I don’t.
What
happens when we fail to be consciously present is that we miss the intimacy of
the moment. When we are intimately connected to the world, to our environment,
and to the others who share it, we have a rare opportunity to see them as they
really are and to experience ourselves as we are. That’s the definition of
intimacy. It happens when we are completely present with another and see their
authenticity in all its complexity, without the smoke and mirrors of our own
ego. We don’t overlay them with our assumptions, projections, expectations, or
judgements. We simply see them clearly.
When we
are consciously present, we notice details—and that noticing makes our lives deeper
and richer. We feel connected and awake. We experience true intimacy when we
bring body, mind, and spirit together in the present and see from a
perspective of wholeness. That makes it memorable. Details, details,
details. Notice some today.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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