I see the shelf every day but it must have been years since I actually looked at it. It has blended with the background, becoming one with my room. My brain knows there is a shelf, and every time I see the shelf, it inserts an abstract placeholder for "shelf". But it does not process the shape, the colors, the dimensions. The brain skips all of the details. Meditation made me realise this. After a sitting, the details are back for a few seconds. The shelf is not abstract anymore, the sofa has a color, the pencil has a design printed on it. The world turns from blurred grey mud to a colourful place full of wonderful, well-defined entities. Ten minutes of meditation is sort of the opposite of ten minutes of infinite scrolling on Instagram.

Here is to a more aware 2022.

Though I have to admit that Rudolph's glowing nose is hard to miss on the shelf