These Days of Liking

Walk into a room and look around. Furnishings give the space personality. Does it fit with your personality? Or likes?

Look around the room some more. Anyone else present? Do they stand out apart from one another? Or do they merge into a group of nonentities? They are dressed in their own garb. Do their styles of attire fit with your personality? Or likes?

The room has activity within it. Sounds as well. Tinkling of glass, a muffled clank of silverware. Dishes being set down and removed. We are in a dining hall of some sort. Is this a restaurant, a hotel banquet room, or a private home with caterers buzzing around picking up spent plates and dinner ware and refilling dishes with fresh food?

Do the sounds welcome you? Do they fit with your mood? Or likes?

And the aromas of the room. They are many – perfumes, after shave colognes, wafting food platters and, of course, the many odors of cocktails – spicy, juicy, tangy – and liquor arousing perfumes. Do they fit well with your inclinations of the moment? Or likes?

And the talk. Murmurs of polite conversations and an occasional burst of passion from a quartet of discussants near the corner of the room. They are deep into their subject matter. Evidently they care a lot for what they are sharing. Wonder what it is? Does this interest your mind? Or likes?

Walking into a room, a building or down a path into the woods. What is it we experience? What do we notice? Or rather, what do we not notice but the effects are just as present anyway? We may not be aware but we are affected.

Do we surround the self with environments that matter to us? Do they shape our thoughts and feelings and thus affect what we do with our time, mind and talents?

I think intentionality is an ingredient we often do not allow for. It is an ingredient of life, isn’t it? Can’t we purposefully care for it and add a dash every now and then into our transactions of daily routine? Does it matter which neighborhood we drive through, or walk past, or travel through on public transportation? Is the area beautiful and inspiring or is it dull and stultifying? Does it smother or lift up? Does it change our mindset? Or do we have control over the effects of those surroundings on our mindset?

Just how much in control of life do we have? If we think about it, maybe we control the ingredients a bit; but most likely we do not think about it. And thus the happenstance of routine dictates again and again what we confront often. Does it lift up? Or does it depress good things?

I hear a strain of music and like it. I hear a snippet of a spoken phrase and am engulfed with wonder over the rhythm and spice of the words. It becomes a short poem in my head as I trudge toward my destination on the commute. Will this snippet – this poem – this thought – stick with me during the day and become something larger? And important to my life? Or will this snippet become a symbol of passing fancy and focus on the passing?

Each day has these little awakenings. To what we do not know. Bits and pieces that have meaning and some substance. They need connecting, though. Connecting with something more and something larger until the big picture forms around the bit and piece. It will become something. But with what intention? What guiding power and from where?

The days of liking lead to intentions we hope. With some discipline – just a little – maybe the intentions become more procedural and thus intentional. And meaningful. Toward the future. Toward more likes.

Until the morrow upon which the process continues.

September 6, 2016