The Lost Art of Noticing and Slowing Down

There is a moment, somewhere between waking up and reaching for your phone, when the world is still quiet. The light is a particular shade of grey-gold. A bird is doing something outside the window. Something small and real is happening, right there, in that room, in that minute. And most days, we miss it not because we mean to, but because our hand has already found the phone even before our eyes could completely open, and the moment has passed before we even knew it existed.

This is not a small thing. This is how most of our days are going.

We used to be very good at noticing. As children, we knew the smell of rain before it arrived — that specific earthiness that rises from hot ground just before the monsoon breaks. We knew which step of the staircase creaked. We could tell from the sound of our mother's chappal in the kitchen whether she was in a good mood or a quiet one. We were, without anyone telling us to be, fully alive to the texture of the world around us.

Nobody took this from us overnight. It left quietly, the way a river narrows — you only notice the loss when you look back and realise the water isn't there anymore.

Think about the last time you ate a meal without looking at a screen. The last time you sat somewhere without putting something in your ears. We have developed a deep discomfort with ordinary silence. We fill every gap — a podcast in the shower, a reel while waiting for the lift, scrolling while the person across from you is mid-sentence. We have confused stimulation with living and being busy at times. And we are paying for it in ways we don't fully see yet... in a vague restlessness, in the feeling that time is moving fast but nothing is staying.

Noticing is not a talent. It is simply a choice, made small but often. There is a reason we remember certain people so vividly — not the most impressive ones, but the ones who made us feel seen. The friend who called without knowing why, just sensing that they should because maybe they saw you smile a little less that day. The stranger on a train who asked if you were okay and actually waited for an answer. These people were not doing anything extraordinary. They were just paying attention. And in a world where attention has become the rarest thing anyone can offer, that is everything you can do to mak someone's day.

In fact Slow living, that Mr. Misra keeps talking about, is not about doing less. It is about being present for what you are already doing. Not half there, one eye on the phone, mentally already in the next thing — but actually there, for the meal, the conversation, the quiet evening. This is available to everyone, in the ordinary minutes of an ordinary day. It is a conscious choice one needs to make.

You just need to look up. Notice today's specific sky. Notice what your neighbourhood sounds like at seven in the evening. Notice the expression on someone's face when they are telling you something that matters to them. The world is astonishingly detailed. It always has been. You just need to choose to see it.

We have simply gotten out of the habit of seeing the world and living in it to the fullest.