Have you ever truly noticed?
It baffles me how much a good walk around in a city like Barcelona can affect you, Like just the sensation of being in a place where life is happening all around you, the kebab shop to your right making the best known food to man, the rain slowly hitting your back, washing the grim of existence away, engulfing the city into a canvas of grey, the seagulls and pigeons looking for food in the dustbins, the slow jazz music leaking out of the cozy bar around the roundabout, the visual of the city lights glowing as the sun goes down, the young couple in the park, holding hands and laughing blissfully enjoying each other's presence, the golden retriever outside the cafe going bonkers due to the weather, the slow cold breeze hitting your face, reminding you that whatever goes down in your life, the world keeps moving. Humanity persists.
One can say it puts you in your place, because once you are walking in such a setting with so many people, your individuality disappears, you become an element of the breathing city, in that moment, nothing really matters except the walk itself. There is sense of melancholy in the atmosphere, you are free to interact with everything, you could eat that kebab, you could pet that dog, you could run to the beach, you could drink 7 beers, you could rent a bike and go fast, all while listening to your favorite music.
Now that I think about it, all of my core memories have been when I have detached my individual thoughts and let my environment seep in, whether it is hanging out at the same bar with my closest people, what i remember is the silly details, the half filled jars of some fucked up combination of alcohol, the smoke filling the air from the cigarettes , the stories of my friends hitting my ears, the slow pop music in the backdrop, the bartender doing his own shenanigans, making the world's 8th wonder behind the bar, the drunk people at the pool table inventing their own rules while laughing hysterically and yelling racial slurs at each other (with love of course)
It could be something as insignificant as a normal study session back home, but whenever I paid intentional attention to my surroundings, everything came to life, Whether it was my cats napping or slapping the living shit out of each other underneath my bed, or the sun steadily setting by the window, the sounds of my brother and neighbors' kids playing outside, or the smell of the majestic dinner my mom was cooking. It all came to me at once, made me feel alive, maybe that is what they mean when they say, we must live in the present, consciously.