Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be here…and elsewhere.
One evening at a restaurant, three women shared a booth but not a conversation. Their attention moved between solo selfies and whatever lived behind the glow of their individual screens.
A few evenings later, Gary and I sat side by side in our living room. We were together, yet not entirely. He was immersed in one project. I was immersed in another.
Neither scene felt unusual. In fact, both felt strangely common.
Those seemingly ordinary moments became questions.
Here And Elsewhere
At first glance, it seems our devices are the problem. Yet I don’t believe they are.
Long before screens, people sat through dinner worrying about tomorrow. They replayed yesterday while walking through today. They imagined different lives while the one they had longed for quietly unfolded around them.
Screens didn’t create this tendency. They simply amplified it, giving our wandering attention a destination.
Perhaps the greatest cost of distraction isn’t that we miss one another. Perhaps it’s that we miss our own lives while they’re happening.
Without ever standing up, we leave the room.
Our lives are happening here. Our attention is happening elsewhere.
How often do we find ourselves here and elsewhere at the same time?
Arriving
Why do we struggle to inhabit the very life we’ve worked so hard to create?
We spend much of our lives trying to arrive. Then we quietly leave the very place we’ve longed to reach.
What if arriving is its own practice?
You finally have the quiet afternoon you’ve been craving, only to spend it thinking about tomorrow. You’re walking beside someone you love while composing an email in your head. You sit down to write, paint, pray, read, or simply rest…and before long, your attention has wandered somewhere else.
Arriving and inhabiting are not the same thing.
Love unfolds here. Creativity does, too, along with every meaningful conversation, every brushstroke, every ordinary, extraordinary moment.
The mind wanders. That’s what minds do.
How do we arrive where we already are?
By noticing we’ve drifted…and gently returning.
Again and again, we arrive.