sunday surprise

if this were a survival situation, i'd be in deep trouble. because things are happening around me that i'm not entirely aware of.

for example, i was sitting here this morning, tapping at the computer, and i glanced out the window. there it was. the big, old japanese maple in front of our house was totally leafed out.

when did this happen? and what else happened while i was sitting here?

thankfully this is not a survival situation, it's an arboreal situation. a surreal arboreal situation, if you will. but still. when the foliage status of large, nearby trees escape notice, it's time for concern.

in his book stumbling on happiness, daniel gilbert describes the difference between experiencing an event and being aware of it. his example is of distractedly reading and rereading the same paragraph without consciously assimilating the words.

in his book stumbling on happiness, daniel gilbert describes the difference between experiencing an event and being aware of it. his example is of distractedly reading and rereading the same paragraph without consciously assimilating the words.

yes, like that. but when refocused on the paragraph, we become aware that we have, indeed, already experienced it. maybe several times.

me, i drive to and from work 10 times a week, in a soporific stupor. this is, in fact, a survival situation, yet the experience rarely rises to the level of awareness. similarly, it's fortunate the japanese maple in our front yard is not, say, a mountain lion, else i'd be experiencing death. or a maiming i wouldn't soon forget.

the takeaway here seems to be that there's a lot going on, all the time, and even the most innocuous confluence of events might be a threat to our wellbeing. it's the butterfly effect gone wild, for example, when the invention of the wheel and the invention of the shoe can lead to the invention of heelys, wheeled shoes that currently threaten the wellbeing of my children.

our only consolation is that the reverse may also be true. that even the most obnoxious confluence of events (say, the ill-starred coupling of george h.w. and barbara bush), may lead to a better world. eventually. a long time from now.

we can only hope we're here to see these eventualities as they unfurl, and that we do more than just experience them. because once in a while survival demands we rise above blissful unawareness and notice there's a mountain lion, wearing heelys, in our favorite tree.