As I sat outside one morning,
Solely existing,
I was ironically pulled into the thoughts of modern day distraction.
And that you will find in my poem that I will read shortly.
But first,
I kind of wanted to expand with a bit of a conversation.
It just becomes so normalized to live a distracted life.
To be trapped in a bubble of false realities like the metro.
It's filled with the sound of reels rather than real life.
Moments of rest are met with the burden of an unsustainable to-do list of trends we're convinced we must try to stay young,
Fit,
Healthy,
Etc.
The friend you meet up with is half with you and half with the group chat of buddies that they'll see later.
And when they meet up with their buddies,
They'll inevitably start to text you too.
Sitting under the stars,
We worry about work tomorrow,
The numbing cycle of forever being wherever we are not.
I fear we're being broken.
Quite quickly by the ease of distractions,
Both in the form of forced productivity and then numbing through avoidance.
So I wrote this poem that same morning.
I remembered that my art simply cannot exist without moments of being present.
Yet some days I still find myself gilting my way into forcing a creation rather than waiting for it to be born.
So.
Here we go.
I sat this morning,
Just sat,
Just like that.
Staring into blank space naturally,
Sorting through stale thoughts.
I noticed the way the sheets off the balcony swayed in the wind and saw the window I had never seemed to notice before.
Even though it's been seven months since I've been sitting here.
I should have seen the window crystal clear.
But it was then that I was hit with a quick splint of urgency as I caught myself in the dirty act of being.
Be doing more.
I must do breath work,
Work out,
Work,
Work,
Writing prompts,
Writing poems,
Gua sha,
Qigong,
Tai chi,
Chinese astrology,
Astrocartography.
Okay,
Stop.
Stop trying to be and simply do.
Be without being someone,
Doing something.
The only thing I need to do is unlearn that self-worth is attached to what I can do,
Should do,
Seems to be,
Never enough,
So we've leaned on new distractions to hide from our wounds.
Of never being enough.
Swipe right,
Swipe left,
Socials,
Check your socials,
Doom scroll,
Scroll to see who you could have been but never will be because you sit here scrolling.
Waste of time,
Of your own potential,
Drowning in your own distractions.
Okay,
Stop.
How much programming did we need to be force-fed to feel like existing is a sign of something being wrong,
Either not doing enough,
Not able to sit with the self without anything else,
This is the plot that was lost.
Losing ourselves to everything outside of us,
Never accepting the simplicity of existing I wish I saw that window before.
All the times I forgot to see what was right in front of me.
I'm sorry.
To the world that's gone unnoticed because we've Grown too distracted.
Gosh,
I hope we don't lose you hope.
To see you.
May we be ever so rebellious in our presence.
I hope you enjoyed.
