Mimi stops talking for a second. It’s just a second but it’s a very sweet second. I think as many thoughts as I can before she starts talking again so that the second seems longer.
As I contemplated the concept of a “sweet second”, I found myself wondering if there is a new lesson here that I need to teach anyone. I realize a blog isn’t all about being didactic. In fact, some might say it’s best to steer away from the aura of mentorship altogether and focus on being entertaining. I’ve never felt the two had to be or should be exclusive though and, with regards to my own tactics of expression, I’ve more often than not felt I was being most respectful to an audience if while sharing an opinion I strove to grant insight while simultaneously grabbing for attention in a creative, interesting manner.
Anyway, that’s another blog. We’ve still that “sweet second” to talk about…
You know the “sweet second” yourself. I don’t have to introduce you. It isn’t truncating a Noah’s ark’s worth of thoughts into a single temporal space of time. Rather we usually know it as an actual “moment”, a sequence of consecutive temporal events which all seem to form a contiguous conglomerate of action. It is both the loud concert from a week ago and the silence in the car. It’s the cheering in the stadium and the hush over the golf green. It’s the dying of thirst on a long, long walk and the first sip of refreshing water when you finally get a drink.
The sweet second has a thousand faces and we recognize them all.
So, given I already know that you’re as familiar with the Sweet Second as am I, what do I have to offer you regarding it that no other person does? What is my special revelation about the Sweet Second?
My revelation is not especially new to humanity, but it is an observation that has rewarded me much so far as I’ve applied it to my own experiences. In case you didn’t know it… ALL seconds are sweet seconds and seconds don’t really have a thousand faces… they have ONE really long, ever transforming expression!
Everything that happened between the concert and the silence in the car was a sweet second. Everything between the stadium and the green. Everything between thirst and the drink.
This is important. Don’t. Miss. Your seconds.
When you learn to savor your seconds and not just your moments, you are learning to savor your part in infinity and (maybe even by extension) infinity itself. This is the practice of understanding the connection between the first breath you took and the last one you expect to take. It grounds you in the past, in the present, and in the future, and, by golly, is likely the closest you’re ever going to get to omnipresence while on this rotating ball of mud.
Appreciate infinity. Appreciate your seconds. Know that all things can be and are best apprehended when viewed as being… “Sweet!”
Speaking of sweet, here are some sweet quotes from Joe Joe Joe by Peasant:
- [Mimi stops talking for a second. It’s just a second but it’s a very sweet second. I think as many thoughts as I can before she starts talking again so that the second seems longer.]
- “An interruption is like a road block. That’s what Frankie says. And I didn’t stop your sentence. I got it where it was going sooner so I’d like you to thank me” Joe
- [her eyebrows cuddle up close to each other]
- [if my mouth corners were pointing up, Mimi would be able to say that I was being sarcastic. I don’t know what exactly mouth corners have to do with being sarcastic, but I know I’m never sarcastic. It means you’ve said something that means the opposite of what you said.]
- “Whites don’t fit like jeans.” Joe
I would like to show my appreciation to the following new followers for their following-ness:
Thank you, ashtonlynn55, for following my blog! 😀 Enjoy following Ashton on her adventures as she finishes her 25 By 25 list and explores another country 🙂
literary legerdemain 
Good post.
I will add / embellish two things:
1. You close with, “Appreciate infinity,” while talking about sweet seconds. I would say, appreciate that everything is finite. Each second then increases in value. After all, everything is finite.
2. You open with a brief discussion about the roll of the blogger, providing the options of educating or entertaining. It is perhaps the split of a hair, but I consider my roll as blogger to be engagement. I am the authority of my own stories. But my goal is to get the reader to tell me theirs, in which they are the authority. Yes, this can be enlightening, and entertaining. But, to me it is all about the reader, not the author.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it 😀
I think that my wording is probably one of those inadvertent reflections of personal opinion that slip into a sentence from time-to-time. I have a tendency to approach life from an infinite perspective (ie. “this moment never happens again over the course of boundless time, it is unique within the flow so, treasure it” and “well, in a hundred years this undesirable event will not matter so grin and get through it”). It’s kind of a funny duality when you think about it b/c the two thought processes gobble one another up to a certain extent. At the same time, it seems like being able to accept and operate within seemingly conflicting views adds an interesting dimension of adaptability to one’s personality so for this time I’ll keep with it.Thank you for giving the “sweet second” its due, sir, even where I may have fallen short!
And, I don’t think you’re splitting hairs at all. In fact, I think you’re kind of putting the split hair together, lol. You’ve taken what I was trying to say and introduced a much better word that unites the two ideas (engagement is most often enlightening and entertaining). Also, you hit something I didn’t reflect on much at all — starting a dialogue. Which (as I hope our comments give example of) create their own form of evolving engagement that goes beyond the text.
Wonderful points, sifumosher 😀 Thank you for sharing!
LikeLike
Most definitely your wording reflects a personal opinion. Show me a writer that doesn’t do that, and I’ll show you are writer that is rarely read. My intent (as I opened) was to “add / embellish” – to throw in my personal opinion on the point. Keep adding your own flavor. That is how we engage.
It is a funny thing that could lead to a future post (hint, hint, wink, wink). Current cosmology suggests that, if time is infinite then all things not only will happen, they will happen an infinite number of times. So we get into this weird space where we cannot say that the moment is unique. The moment itself is infinite.
As for myself, I accept this cosmological pov. However, as I am currently writing a book centered on consciousness, I have deep reflections that make me value the unique nature of our physical being and our current “awareness”, which lead more toward an idea of finiteness. In the multi-verse I may exist an infinite number of times, and I may have written and will write this comment an infinite number of times. But to me – the me that is here now that I am aware of – it only happens once.
LikeLiked by 1 person