A Story w/ Questions

I was sitting. I was sitting on a couch in a room that had four other people in it. Each of us were together and in fact, there had been two more people in that room that had been with us up until they stopped being with us. We were all together in one room but we weren't... together.

Each of us had our own thoughts.

Fragments of potential conversations drifted around the room in a lilt. Handicapped by distraction.

None of us needed to talk to the other.

None of us even wanted, necessarily, to talk to the other.

We all had our own ideas, our own thoughts, even our own expectations of the night that we were sharing.

This is what I know to be a social gathering. This is what I know to be a night out, a night together.

Would this be different if we had nothing to look at but each others faces?

One had his titles of music. One had applications aplenty. Two were sharing a screen, neither sharing a moment.

What would happen if there were no screens to look at? What would happen if our only entertainment was the people who shared the room?

Would we be genuinely together? Would we truly enjoy each others' company?

Or would we find out that we really don't like each other all that much?

Is our company permissible because we have distractions to hide the things we don't like?

How can I know whether I want to be with a person if I've never been with them and no one or nothing else?

And one last question. Our lives are fleeting specks of moments in a universe that will expand beyond imagination, our concerns and joys long, long forgotten. Our race will end and everything will persist. We are smaller than we can ever imagine. And yet, to us, our lives are all we know. We are the centers of our own universes and by the time our lives are done, all we will have is the memories of what we've seen, who we've met, and where we've been.

Why would we want to waste those precious seconds with people, people we could grow to love or hate or live with, and never look at their faces? Never engage with or learn deeply about?

My goals have been slow to develop and I'm enjoying the month, teasing up or taming down the desires and expectations I have for myself. I have discovered another one.

Meet the people around me and spend the little time I have to learn as much as I can about them and what I can do for them. Forget the phone, computer, or TV for a second. Those will be around forever, but people and time are such fragile, fleeting things.

I have to embrace these wonders of life.