Reading harold_maude's journal

Pick up anything, a spoon, a newspaper, a coin, a flower and get real close. What do you see?

How often do we go through life missing the little things that make something what it is?

To notice the details of anything is a compliment to the thing itself. To marvle at it's structure and wonder how it was made and the hands of the person or people who made it is amazing. It leads to a deeper type of learning, and from all accounts an important one.

It's important to notice details because it helps you remember.
When it comes to the people in your life it's actually an act of love that can make a huge difference in how you look at them and the emotional investment you make.

Looking for details is like detective work that can last a life time. And it's worth the time it takes. How many people in your life right now can you tell what they are looking for just by the look on their face?
Can you tell when they are happy or sad, or just trying to figure out something?
What color do their eyes become when their mood changes?

All details.

Life is so short. Too short in fact. Sometimes the most precious of people come into our lives and there isn't enough time to learn everything that makes them who they are.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to when I was 19 and have all the knowledge I do now. I would take more time and learn more about the people who were around me. Not that all of thoes people were pleasant, but the things about them were. Some of thoes people are gone now, my father being one.

If I would have paid more attention to the details of who he was I would have understood something years before the revelation I got three weeks before he died.
That he would never tell me that he was proud of who I was as a person, or that he was glad I was his daughter.

If I had known how important details were back then, I would have stopped trying to do something, anything to make him proud of me. It was a waste. Years of wasted time.

I learned about the importance of noticing details as my children were born and as they grew up.
Now it's elementry to my life.
I've learned over the years that the greatest compliment you can give anyone is to notice the details of who they are. It's a gift that you give them without it ever being noticed as a gift.
It makes them feel like you really do care about more than just surface things, or what they can do for you.
And it can and does help you understand why they do some of the things they do.

Then there is the process of learning about you. The details of who you are.
I heard it said that the greatest book you will ever read is about you. The pages turn, being new everyday, and what you do and say is what is written.

Just a few thoughts...

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.