Perfect Days - “You are here. This is your life”

Everyone's feeling too much and not-enough at the same time. Rambling through thirty-eight tabs, mails, imaginary hobbies and delusional dreams at the same time. Not feeling the moment. That’s the pandemic I observe in and around me. Sometimes way too much and sometimes (very rarely) I see peace in that face, someone whose days doesn’t start with panic breakfast - bread, banana and peanut butter, but with ease, breathing each step. That’s what I aspire in priority each day and fail miserably.

I get lost, more often than I need to. I see people, but then my eyes or ears find something else (usually the smart device i carry). This continuously, each day, all day, in loop, which numbs me instead of observing that one beautiful human or tree, I first landed my eyes on. My fingers along with fabulous S24, recurringly initiates youtube shorts in chrome.

I don’t like the fact that people have devices to escape - some ott, delivery app or social media, which instead of streamlining the thoughts and providing channels to actually socialise (which improves oxytocin – the love hormone), it curls up those threads of thought into a spherical goofball and throws it somewhere around the bush, which eventually creeps back onto the playground. Repeat this cycle for years and you are lost.

I own a wired headphone, used only for work - webex meets. That means, I don’t consume music when I am travelling or sitting in some café alone. What I do have, is a novel, which I am compelled to read in absence of any external stimuli. Though I am not much of a reader, and when I read, I fall asleep faster than a tired trekker, but systems like this help in keeping you in track of your strategic intent. In my room speakers are used almost as much as the fan in my room. That’s the context.

and i switch-off the phone while watching movie at home. Try, it's much enjoyable this way.

The world is running behind perfecting the art of marketing and grabbing attention in seconds. But taste is not developed by stacking hundreds of six second aesthetic reel, though it can surely inspire and ignite spark. It develops with depth in attention, when it occupies space and time (both) of your mind.

Perfect Days, a Japanese slice-of-life film by Wim Wender starring Koji Yakuso is ironically ‘perfect’ movie to engulf the above thoughts. It’s shows daily mundane life of a middle-aged man in Japan, who lives alone and wakes up each morning without alarm to clean public toilets of Japan. (btw the toilets are too beautiful, each with better and unique design than other) Everything above suggests that he must be miserable, actually he should be/ought to be miserable. BUT he is not, he is at bliss, flirting with shadows, capturing tree canopies, everyday saunas, classic rock cassettes on his way to work. The reason why (I think) the movie is quite widely popular because all or most of us are well aware of the global attention drought and dire need of mindfulness. And obviously the sweet acting, location, colours and camera. The simple routines, finishing the tasks, re-reading books, photography, keeping a tiny diary, weekly visit to your friend (well, that’s his version of social-media) makes a man happy, healthy and alive. Unlike us chasing meditation and protein, his life is ‘less’ but fuller.

for me and you - Walk without music. Mindfully.