I've always wanted to try something…
And today I took a chance to sit down and do it: people-watch and take notes.
I always notice people around me, and when I'm alone sipping coffee, it's definitely something I partake in for three minutes or so. I love noticing the way no laugh is the same or the way each conversation between people sounds at least just a little bit unknown or bizarre because I don't know the context.
But I have always wanted to sit down and actually dedicate my whole self into it and write notes down. I've always wanted to fully immerse myself into the experience of being not there— being that wall or that floor or that chair….just the universe, observing from the side without doing anything at all.
I think this is such a great way to bring myself closer with the world because like I said, it's almost like I'm trying to take a small role on a small scale, of being the universe. I'm just letting the earth's tale unfold before me, and I get to write notes on what I see— not what I feel. I am not here. The world is. And I essentially find that so moving and also risky because I normally never do that. I normally invite myself and my views into everything. It's so refreshing to just take myself completely out of it.
It's also risky because after I sat down and watched people and took notes for half an hour between classes, I realized that the universe, the world— earth— has a life that will go on without me if I'm not here. This isn't meant to sound depressing; I really truly find it amazing that I can think all about me and my thoughts and my opinions about how much I like a girl's laugh or a guy's way of pulling a chair out so he can sit down. Or I can people watch and judge the conversation between two guys who are trying to figure out a text to send a girl, asking for a hook-up. I can wonder why they are talking so loudly about something so private.
But people-watching in the way that I just sit down and keep my thoughts out of it, I realize that this laughter and conversation between people would go on with or without what I think of it. I am unimportant to that laughter and conversation. If anything, I should feel lucky that I got to witness other lives just live in front of me. I should feel proud that I get to share the earth the way I do, that this magical earth will always have people interacting however they do. Mother Earth doesn't need me to live.
And realizing that is scary. But it's also so inspiring. It makes me want to cherish every moment I'm just living and breathing. Not everyone even gets to do that. The people on this earth are in billions, but there's countless more people not being born. And so to have this chance to just be alive is like winning a lottery ticket, but a thousand times better.
At the end of the day, my notes are my own and they're just notes about what was being said and done around me.
1. A girl in a red coat came down to sit next to her friend, who smiled when the girl in the red coat came. The two started talking about their psychology class and how much they hate reading the textbook.
2. Two guys are sitting in a blue and orange chair near Panda Express. One has his phone out and asks this other one, "Should I ask if she wants to come over?" The friend told him to write something more insinuating.
3. A girl is trying desperately to fit the whole front of her sandwich with one bite. Some crumbs fall.
These notes aren't anything special in general, but they're special to me. I enjoy so much realizing life is being lived all around me, and I'm surprised with myself to feel so at ease after doing an exercise that takes me completely out of the picture. It's amazing what can happen when you try to be the world— the universe— just observing, instead of being a human with no right to judge, judging.
man running in forestPhoto by 
