The Itouch Phone advertisement on television caught my attention.(But then, how could it NOT catch my attention? The volume was 3 decibels louder than the program I had been watching.) "Say you need to
know the tip amount on a restaurant bill for a party of four," the announcer said. "We have
an "AP" for that!" Among a million other things, it could take photographs, access the Internet, and play 999 of my favorite songs. Does anyone actually HAVE 999 favorite songs?
While taking my dog, Gillie, for a walk the other day I began to observe cars
as they zoomed past on the busy street, and began to count how many
drivers had cellphones pressed to their ear. Actually, it would have been
easier to count how many drivers DIDN'T have a cellphone pressed to
their ear. (Don't get me started on text messaging while driving.)
I also began to observe other sights and sounds on the street. Ah, the sweet sound of booming amplifiers thumping their bass rhythm
heard from cars even with their windows rolled up. Next, two motorcyles came roaring by, followed by a car with a teen driver, whose exploding muffler was surely about to take launch and fly down the street like a rocket ship. WHOA HORSEY! My brain began to overload and my head began to pound.
If you fall under the bracket referred to as "middle aged", or a "baby boomer", chances are, you remember stretching out on the grass in the backyard on a summer day just gazing at the clouds breezing across the blue sky. Perhaps you recall playing the "That Cloud Looks Like this or that..." game. Some may refer to such behavior as lazy, or unproductive. I call it recharging the brain. Even cellphones and iPods need to recharge on a regular basis! We wonder why we can't sleep at night; why we get so irritated with rude drivers, or why we have trouble concentrating on simple tasks from time to time. We can't just keep bombarding our ears and our brains with this constant over-stimulation and not expect our nerves to get tied in knots. How can we begin to find an answer to whatever is ailing us if we don't take the time to just "think."
Don't let anyone put you on a guilt trip, or convince yourself you don't have time to do "nothing." You don't expect your cellphone or iPod to recharge itself, do you? God gave the robin and whippoorwill their sweet and tender voices, and he gave the flowers their sweet fragrance for us to enjoy. So, as the saying goes, "Don't forget to smell the roses."
May, 2009
