Perceiving The Environment Around Me

Yesterday and today have been the happiest that I’ve felt in a long time.  I would like to thank everyone and every thing that helped me to achieve….or rather, realized this happiness that has always been.

I’ll start off with a quote that I may or may not have mentioned before:  Everything that has happened had to happen for now to happen.

I’ll actually come back to this quote a bit later, but for now I’ll move on to the main context of this blog.

Yesterday, I listened.

I watched.

I tasted.

I smelled.

I touched.

I perceived.

Have you ever intentionally watched a movie with the sound off for a good amount of time?  I think this is especially truthful for horror movies, but without sound everything seems more….staged I guess would be a word to describe.

Well, yesterday on my way to class I decided to grab my iPod because I was going to go to the gym.  Then, I realized that I haven’t listened to my iPod since my plane ride back to Cali.  As I turned on my iPod, I went to a playlist that I have affectionately labeled “My Chilling Playlist”.  It’s a combination of many different genres of music, but they are all songs that I find musically beautiful if not in its entirety then at least most of it.

When I picked a song from that playlist and walked to class, I remembered the reason why I created that playlist:  simply put, it’s made for me to just sit back and chill.  I have tracks on there that make me wanna dance, that gets me relaxed, yet hyped, to go to the gym, tracks that makes me want to sing, etc.  So while listening on my way to class, the thought of just paying attention to my environment made me think about why things change.  Have I changed since the making of this playlist?  Do these songs still have the same meaning to me as they used to?  Do they have new meaning in addition to what they mean now?  What has changed around me to make these things change even though they are exactly the same as when I downloaded them?  What don’t I like about these songs now that I liked back then?  I thought about these questions as soon as I grabbed my iPod until I reached the front door to leave the Residence Hall (roughly the equivalent of 30 seconds).

Then I stepped outside.

“Damn” I thought.  In my recent bouts of unhappiness and questioning, I haven’t actually been paying much attention to anything.  While thinking about all of those other things, I thought about perception.  The phrase “You are a product of your environment” popped into my head.  My next thought was ” Which environment am I a product of?”  In relation to myself, I believe that statement is both 100% accurate and completely false at the same time.  Yes, my environment that I grew up with has shaped me to be who I am today, but I do not believe that I am an accurate representation of my environment.  It’s kind of hard to explain, but that’s how I feel about it.  And I also thought about if I am a product of this environment that I currently am living within.  Or if I ever will be a product of this environment.  Or….if I even want to be a product of the environment….

So in addition to the first 30 seconds between me leaving my room and getting to the door, and after this past 10 seconds when I thought about me being a product, I actually thought about what kind of environment I’m currently in and what makes up this environment.

And that’s when I stopped thinking and started perceiving.

All I did was absorb as much as I could around me.  I saw the landscape of the bowl with the athenaum in the background with the sun shining down to create a magnificently mild-temperatured day with a breeze that was neither too cold nor too infrequent.  I smelled the scent of the ocean on the breeze, the smell of the cut grass, the smell of tobacco from where someone was smoking, etc.  I saw how the birds were playing in the wind and saw how they interacted with the environment and imagined how they perceived the world.

I couldn’t do too much of that though because I had to get my ass to Japanese class before I was late.  But on the way there I turned my music up to where I couldn’t hear people talk anymore.  I purposefully did this so that I could focus on what they were saying about themselves; the part that couldn’t be perceived through just hearing their rendition of their thoughts through the use of the English language.  I noticed facial expressions, both before and after they greeted someone.  It’s interesting on how fast someone can drop a fake smile haha.  On the same token however, it was nice to see genuine smiles and laughter on such a nice day.  I noticed body language and also took note of personal idiosyncrasies and mannerisms while they interacted with their environment.

Before getting into class, I took more notice of the slope of the land, the colors that were dominate, which animals are present during this time of day, which security was on duty, who was reading outside and how they looked while they were concentrating on whatever it is that they were doing, etc.  I was aware of pretty much everything, the only thing different was that the noise that accompanied my perception in terms of hearing was the music of my choosing from the most well-liked songs that I own.

When I got into class, I decided not to stop.  I decided not to talk much, but to just perceive.  I watched how people spoke in another language.  I watched how they physically expressed themselves; how they moved their mouths to form the words that they were saying, I listened to the inflections in their speech patterns and how that affected the tone of their sentences, and I also listened to the type of voice they used to speak each language, and I watched and listened to the way they even read the text.

After surviving that hell, I went to the gym to box.  I turned on my music low enough to still hear what was going on around me, but enough for it to accompany what I was perceiving while walking to the gym.

3 points of perception

what you want perceived

how i perceive

….I’ll come back to this blog actually.  I’ve been sittin on this draft for almost 3 days now.  I’ll finish blogging about this in a part two after this next blog that I’m about to post.

Sorry about that haha

P N B E

James Shonin Kelly III

#happiness #experience #chill #perceiving #hope #life #relax