I just had a weird moment, similar to other weird moments that I experience periodically.
It was a mundane thing, really, adjusting my glasses for a moment so I could more easily see my television screen to read some text in a game I was playing. Wait a second, glasses? Game? TV?
I mean, the whole thing really stopped me in my tracks for a second as my sense of wonder took hold. The things that happen to us every day are marvelous. It's unreal how even basic things we use to go about our lives affect us. We notice them acutely when they're gone; if I can't find my glasses my world is put on hold while I search. But when they're readily available, we just take them as a given.
Of the three things I listed above, I'd like to focus (heh) on my glasses. I don't even want to imagine what life would have been like without a way to correct my vision. Constantly shoving things up against my face so I could see them clearly, squinting, headaches... and being unable to read comfortably is the kicker. Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes! I couldn't make do without a good... book...
Hey, there was once a time when literacy rates were so low that people who could read even one language were in the minority. By, like, a lot. Nowadays we say to ourselves as we eat food that was first imagined half a world away that we would really like to work on that second language and maybe live in that country for a year or so, as an adventure or as an experience before we kick the bucket for good.
Except that food wouldn't be in our mouths without technological advances that made travel and instant communication mundane. And the possibility of living in another country would have been more like an unattainable fantasy only a (relatively, in the grand scheme of things) very short time ago.
Flight?
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So tell me what you're absolutely amazed about the existence of. There is so much in our lives that makes our short time so worthwhile and we just go, "Ehhhh."
It was a mundane thing, really, adjusting my glasses for a moment so I could more easily see my television screen to read some text in a game I was playing. Wait a second, glasses? Game? TV?
I mean, the whole thing really stopped me in my tracks for a second as my sense of wonder took hold. The things that happen to us every day are marvelous. It's unreal how even basic things we use to go about our lives affect us. We notice them acutely when they're gone; if I can't find my glasses my world is put on hold while I search. But when they're readily available, we just take them as a given.
Of the three things I listed above, I'd like to focus (heh) on my glasses. I don't even want to imagine what life would have been like without a way to correct my vision. Constantly shoving things up against my face so I could see them clearly, squinting, headaches... and being unable to read comfortably is the kicker. Reading is one of my favorite pasttimes! I couldn't make do without a good... book...
Hey, there was once a time when literacy rates were so low that people who could read even one language were in the minority. By, like, a lot. Nowadays we say to ourselves as we eat food that was first imagined half a world away that we would really like to work on that second language and maybe live in that country for a year or so, as an adventure or as an experience before we kick the bucket for good.
Except that food wouldn't be in our mouths without technological advances that made travel and instant communication mundane. And the possibility of living in another country would have been more like an unattainable fantasy only a (relatively, in the grand scheme of things) very short time ago.
Flight?
So tell me what you're absolutely amazed about the existence of. There is so much in our lives that makes our short time so worthwhile and we just go, "Ehhhh."