There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.

A couple of years ago, on a Saturday afternoon, I was watching an episode of Lost that I had Tivo’ed from the week before. I think it was the one where Michael killed Ana Lucia and Libby, because I remember that I was really into it – it was just getting good. I had been interrupted three or four times already, by my mom asking me to take my laundry upstairs or my dad showing me a newspaper article, stuff like that, so I was a bit perturbed already. It was in the last five minutes when my sister yelled “Hey, Matt! Come look at this!” I was so enraged that I couldn’t get forty-five minutes to myself that I finally just shut it off and said out loud, “Screw it, I’ll just watch it later, I guess. WHAT?” She meekly handed me a packet we had just gotten in the mail from Plan II, and we all know what a big packet instead of a dinky white envelope means. My only response was, “…oh.”

Whatever I do, I’ve noticed that I have the tendency to try to make it an experience instead of just another action, especially when it comes to media. I prefer watching movies in a dark room on my laptop with my headphones in – I can shut out the outside world, so the only thing that my senses can possibly perceive is the movie itself. I get into it more, I engage myself more fully when there are no distractions to pull me away. I think my roommate thinks that I’m antisocial because when I’m in the room, I usually have my headphones in playing music full blast instead of having a conversation for the sake of having a conversation. I do that a lot when I listen to music. I’ll lie in bed with my iPod, shut my eyes, crank it up, and just enjoy. I can’t keep one earbud in as background music while I’m having a conversation or whatever, because I usually end up getting caught up in a guitar solo and tuning out the person I’m talking to. Not a great conversational skill.

For the last couple years, I’ve tried to live by a maxim that I came up with – “Do what you’re doing.” If you’re talking with someone, then talk with him and pay attention, don’t wonder what’s for dinner. If you’re reading a book, don’t stop every couple of paragraphs to get a drink of water or look around. If you’re writing, don’t check Facebook every five minutes. It loses its flow, it doesn’t mean as much when you don’t just get into it and enjoy it for all it’s worth. I came up with this idea during the summer after my junior year of high school when our class went to Europe for three weeks. We went to Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and everywhere worth going to in Italy, among other places – not to be cliché, but it was the kind of trip you only get the chance to do once. All around me, though, all I heard was bitching about the food not being good enough, the rules were too strict, the bus was too cramped, etc, etc. I just wanted to tell everyone to chill the fuck out. Maybe listening to a song you’ve heard a million times isn’t an experience, but touring the Sistine Chapel sure as hell is. Pay attention, look at the murals and stuff, and stop complaining that you think someone stole one of your T-shirts. You’re here, you chose to be here, you can’t change it, so you’re only hurting yourself by not fully engaging in your surroundings.

I’ve found that the opposite of this is also true – if you don’t want to be somewhere, then don’t be there. Obviously, everyone is forced to deal with certain unpleasantness that pops up occasionally, but it’s easy enough to disengage mentally, if not physically. If I’m in a really boring class, for example, I’ll usually just halfheartedly scribble down whatever the professor is saying while I’m off in my own little world. Not paying attention makes the time go faster. This is obviously easier when the situation has a definite endpoint – a fifty-minute class period, for example, or the guy that lives across the hall that you absolutely hate deciding to sit across from you at dinner. Even if it seems like it’ll never end, it will, and you know when it will. Almost anything’s bearable for a predefined period of time.

I just seem to take more enjoyment out of life when I, as I said, do what it is that I’m doing. I take more away from it when I’m able to completely immerse myself in a movie or a TV show or a song or a conversation. It just seems like a waste of time, otherwise. Yeah, I spent three hours of my life reading this book, but I didn’t understand any of it because I wasn’t paying attention. I can either spend more time rereading it, or I can just call it a loss and move on. Neither of those options is really appealing. Hence, if you see me sprawled out in the Quad with my nose buried in book, don’t come up to me and ask me how I’m doing because you haven’t seen me for three hours. Unless your name is Tim. I always have time for you, sweetcheeks:)