Stillness as a New Year's Resolution(repost)

I just finished reading a great New York Times article on the "Joy of Stillness". Stillness and taking opportunities for deeper contemplation is something I try to practice regularly. This is something I think about a great deal as I navigate through this busy life distracted by the very technology that connects me to the greater world. Even when you live in an environment, as I do, that offers and encourages many opportunities to stop and be still, to reflect and contemplate, I know that I am far too tied to my laptop and my Blackberry. I find that as good as these devices are for staying connected to family and friends, and this is important to me since I am living and studying in Ireland right now, that I am too dependent on these devices for connection and that they can distract me from times of quiet contemplation and stillness, which I find essential for my life.

So, inspired by this New York Times article, I have decided that my New Year's resolution is to limit my social time on my computer and to build in a regular hiatus for quiet, reflective time. I am also re-reading the correspondences of Griffin and Sabine again and I am thinking that I may return to handwriting some letters instead of sending emails all the time. My friend Jayn sent me a wonderful letter when I first arrived at the University of Limerick a year and a half ago. I loved receiving and reading something I could so tangibly hold in mh hands. I appreciated the effort and time it took to write it and especially that Jayn has not lost the art of letter writing. So I am going to try to do the same, to hand- write letters this year as an expansion of my communication. It seems to me we have lost this art and it occurs to me that technnology has in fact contracted our methods of communicating and turned us into an era of sound- bites and thirty-second spots, while distracting us from stillness. So my resolution is going to include less computer time, more time for stillness and contemplation and expansion in the art of letter writing. I will let you know how I am doing. In the meantime, I wish you a happy and healthy new year and send love fron Glocca Morra.