Think small, then go smaller still.

Since beginning this experience of lockdown it has swept a level of simplicity into my world that I have never really experienced before. Enforced though it has been, the eradication of events, social interactions, lack of activity has reduced down each day’s contents to the lowest common denominators.

 Before the world was busy and so was I. In that movement from one event to another, from one action to another, there isn’t always the gap to reflect. Do I really want to go there? Do I really want to meet up? Do I really want to eat that? So mostly habitual reactions inform our choices, like decisions made whilst sleepwalking.

 Yet currently, with all the gaps of time and the slowing down of life, I seem to be in a way more reflective mood. I am more concentrated in my choices. They seem more intentional, with more consideration. I take my time. I allow for space. I am not rushing anywhere or speeding through a decision- making process.

 And life is now calling for a concentration. Like simmering down and reducing a sauce, from a watery, flavourless combination to a more intense flavoured concoction. It’s brought to mind how every great event or business or natural phenomena begins. In the first step, tiny action or seed. It all starts so infinitesimally small. We all seem to think it is all about the big, but it’s all in the small. In the detail, the precision, the care.

 I had big plans of action for 2020. And as the year has unfolded in a way no one could have predicted, it has created a deep sense of honing back, culling and refining. Choosing again and choosing to go small, really small. I can count in single digits all the things I want to do this year and all the people I want in my world. And it goes against everything I thought I wanted or revered. It’s in opposition to all the big ideas and ideas of quantity over quality. Seeing more people, doing more activities living in many unquestioned ways.

 What lockdown has shown me is that I want love, meaningful connections and deeper explorations. I am not looking to skim surfaces, keep up status quos and live in a rush of unquestioned existence. I don’t want to swim in the shallow end of a pool, I want to dive deep into an ocean.