Romanticizing life is a choice, just like slowing down is a mindset. There will always be difficulty. There will always be new types of stress, hardship, or challenge. There will always be wasteful and beautiful things to fill our time. But notice how there are always people who can find the magic in the mundane. The people whose soul comes alive at the finding of a simple feather or little flower. And how, regardless of the chaos, there are people who can bring calm to every circumstance because they themselves are grounded and at ease.
How do they do it? How can someone turn the worst situation into a cherished memory, or make even the most prosaic event inspiring?
It all starts with something as simple as slowing your pace. A frenzied nervous system is in a state of panic. Panic induces almost total shutdown of the prefrontal cortex functions and screams “HURRY, HURRY, HURRYYY!!!” Calm souls, romanticizing souls, poetic souls--they have within them an air of stillness, an air of calm.
This is no accident. In reclaiming these little moments-- something as simple as slowing down your hurried pace-- you reconnect to the curiosity, wonder, and observational abilities of higher-level thinking. Higher-level thinking is the foundation for higher-level being.
Oftentimes, it is not that these calm souls have any less to do than you or I. It is that within their own full lives, they choose to reclaim the in-between moments that might otherwise be lost to loud music, endless scrolling, or the lifeless stare of a mental check-out. To these souls, everything holds possibility. Each moment has the chance to produce magic and memory. The little things give them life. They know it, and they are on the lookout for it, all while practicing gratitude for what they already have.
So if you do anything today, walk a bit slower. You have time. There is no need to hurry. You will get there when you get there. And as you slow down, notice how you feel. Notice what you notice.
Look up. Look in. Look around. Look at.
Intentionally pay attention to textures, sights, and sounds. Observe the subtle differences between color shades, voice inflection, and unspoken body language. Look at the texture combinations of outfits and the posture that your fellow humans carry themselves. What can you read in these observations? What can you learn?
Now lay on the ground. Climb on a bench or chair. Look at things in new ways from new angles and new positions. This alone rewires the automated patterns in your brain.
According to Photographic Equilibrium, your brain will fill in ‘gaps’ of what you cannot see. This rule applies specifically at night. When you look at something in the dark for longer than 5 seconds, your brain will overlay your vision (or lack thereof) with an image it thinks it is supposed to be seeing.
Imagine the effect of this in your daily life. Wonder why you can’t see the ketchup in the fridge when you’re looking right at it? Your brain is literally overlaying the belief of ‘I can’t find it’ over your actual vision. The result? You can’t find it.
So how does this apply to slowing down and romanticizing life? Well when you slow down and look at things in new ways, it forces your brain to create new neural connections. This causes your brain, in a sense, to pause and breathe. Instead of filling in your vision or thoughts with old programming--limiting beliefs, insecurity, doubt, etc.--your brain now has the chance to see, believe, or learn something new.
Again, notice the characteristic of the Romantic. Most of them (if not all of them) are obsessed with learning and saying in the NOW. They actively stay present and practice gratitude for what they have, while excitedly pursuing learning. The romantic is queen of paradox. She has everything she could ever need in this moment and she adores all forms of development and learning through travel, high quality literature, appreciating the arts--so on and so forth.
Gratitude and study are an act of rebellion against the automated, unsatisfied machine of modern life. Study requires dedication and conviction. Gratitude requires humility and patience. All traits that the beast of instant gratification and rampant consumerism despise.
The souls most fulfilled in life find joy in everyday beauties. She muses. She feels. Converses and creates. She looks at and loves little details and quiet moments. She sees existence as art.
Tools & Tips to Slow Down and Romanticize More:
How else can one slow down and romanticize life? How can you become an artist of stillness? A few of my favorite things are...
- Play a board game, card game, or sport instead of watching one. Invent a game or host a game night with friends or family.
- Read a newspaper or physical book (preferably a classic) instead of reading soul-sucking news on your phone or low-level literature by the light of your kindle. Better yet, go on a bookish date night to your local library or book store.
- Plan a movie night with pjs and popcorn to watch a classic film or interesting new release over scrolling TikToks and reels. Tell me that is not infinitely more romantic and memorable?
- Go to an art museum or pull out the colored pencils and paints you’ve had stashed away for far too long. Bob Ross Night was one of my favorite dates to this day. Allow yourself to be a beginner. Fail. Get messy. Get SOMETHING on that paper. Color outside the lines. Break the rules. Break the mental box. Break the psychological conditioning and the toxic need for perfectionism
- Get your photos printed! Look at them in a printed album or frame them to admire on your wall rather than scrolling them in your digital album. Remember: your photos are not yours unless they’re in your hand.
- Go on a hunt for your favorite vinyl at your local music or antique store. Listen to a physical vinyl album or CD over depression-inducing snippets of ‘trending audio’. Make yourself or your love a personalized Spotify playlist! Find new artists. Learn their names. Support your local artist or best of all, learn an instrument yourself. And the opposite? Sit in silence.
- If you really feel like getting uncomfortable, sit down and write. Write anything that comes to mind. Write until your hand cramps. Write until you’ve spilled all your guts. And when all the surface-level word vomit is out, sit and write a letter to someone you love. Tell them the things you never say. Tell them how you love them and why you love them and the impact they’ve had on your life. Say all the things you’d say at their funeral. Be bold. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Say it now, before it’s too late.
- And when it comes to love, take your time. Romance them. Listen to them. Learn about them. Fall in love with every little thing about them. The birth mark on their calf. The way their eyes light up when they talk about the clouds. The wheeze of laughter that escapes them involuntarily when you make them laugh. Fall in love with slow Sundays, messy hair, and the way they fall asleep reading a book (every time, without fail).
Conclusion
It is in these small moments that lightning has struck poetry into the minds of the great writers of our time. The blank page of am essay that inspired the epic journey of a small hobbit and a caffe napkin that birthed a beloved wizard. It was the combination of love and concern that inspired the crafting of the recipe for fettuccine alfredo, and the simple challenge of a friend to write a short ghost story that brought one of the most iconic works of Gothic fiction to publication. Over and over again, we see love, a little boredom, gratitude, presence, and stillness as the catalyst for fulfillment, invention, and world-changing creation.
The magic of life is created in the little moments as you become a person of intention and mindfulness. By integrating these practices into your life, you can slow down and embrace the art of romanticizing the everyday, finding stillness amidst the chaos.
This article is an excerpt from Issue No. 2 of our quarterly newspaper, ‘The Art (of) Living’, a physical newspaper shipped to your door on each Equinox and Solstice of the year. If you like what you’ve read, you'll love the physical paper even more! Start your subscription [Here].
Romanticizing life is a choice, just like slowing down is a mindset. There will always be difficulty. There will always be new types of stress, hardship, or challenge. There will always be wasteful and beautiful things to fill our time. But notice how there are always people who can find the magic in the mundane. The people whose soul comes alive at the finding of a simple feather or little flower. And how, regardless of the chaos, there are people who can bring calm to every circumstance because they themselves are grounded and at ease.
How do they do it? How can someone turn the worst situation into a cherished memory, or make even the most prosaic event inspiring?
It all starts with something as simple as slowing your pace. A frenzied nervous system is in a state of panic. Panic induces almost total shutdown of the prefrontal cortex functions and screams “HURRY, HURRY, HURRYYY!!!” Calm souls, romanticizing souls, poetic souls--they have within them an air of stillness, an air of calm.
This is no accident. In reclaiming these little moments-- something as simple as slowing down your hurried pace-- you reconnect to the curiosity, wonder, and observational abilities of higher-level thinking. Higher-level thinking is the foundation for higher-level being.
Oftentimes, it is not that these calm souls have any less to do than you or I. It is that within their own full lives, they choose to reclaim the in-between moments that might otherwise be lost to loud music, endless scrolling, or the lifeless stare of a mental check-out. To these souls, everything holds possibility. Each moment has the chance to produce magic and memory. The little things give them life. They know it, and they are on the lookout for it, all while practicing gratitude for what they already have.
So if you do anything today, walk a bit slower. You have time. There is no need to hurry. You will get there when you get there. And as you slow down, notice how you feel. Notice what you notice.
Look up. Look in. Look around. Look at.
Intentionally pay attention to textures, sights, and sounds. Observe the subtle differences between color shades, voice inflection, and unspoken body language. Look at the texture combinations of outfits and the posture that your fellow humans carry themselves. What can you read in these observations? What can you learn?
Now lay on the ground. Climb on a bench or chair. Look at things in new ways from new angles and new positions. This alone rewires the automated patterns in your brain.
According to Photographic Equilibrium, your brain will fill in ‘gaps’ of what you cannot see. This rule applies specifically at night. When you look at something in the dark for longer than 5 seconds, your brain will overlay your vision (or lack thereof) with an image it thinks it is supposed to be seeing.
Imagine the effect of this in your daily life. Wonder why you can’t see the ketchup in the fridge when you’re looking right at it? Your brain is literally overlaying the belief of ‘I can’t find it’ over your actual vision. The result? You can’t find it.
So how does this apply to slowing down and romanticizing life? Well when you slow down and look at things in new ways, it forces your brain to create new neural connections. This causes your brain, in a sense, to pause and breathe. Instead of filling in your vision or thoughts with old programming--limiting beliefs, insecurity, doubt, etc.--your brain now has the chance to see, believe, or learn something new.
Again, notice the characteristic of the Romantic. Most of them (if not all of them) are obsessed with learning and saying in the NOW. They actively stay present and practice gratitude for what they have, while excitedly pursuing learning. The romantic is queen of paradox. She has everything she could ever need in this moment and she adores all forms of development and learning through travel, high quality literature, appreciating the arts--so on and so forth.
Gratitude and study are an act of rebellion against the automated, unsatisfied machine of modern life. Study requires dedication and conviction. Gratitude requires humility and patience. All traits that the beast of instant gratification and rampant consumerism despise.
The souls most fulfilled in life find joy in everyday beauties. She muses. She feels. Converses and creates. She looks at and loves little details and quiet moments. She sees existence as art.
Tools & Tips to Slow Down and Romanticize More:
How else can one slow down and romanticize life? How can you become an artist of stillness? A few of my favorite things are...
- Play a board game, card game, or sport instead of watching one. Invent a game or host a game night with friends or family.
- Read a newspaper or physical book (preferably a classic) instead of reading soul-sucking news on your phone or low-level literature by the light of your kindle. Better yet, go on a bookish date night to your local library or book store.
- Plan a movie night with pjs and popcorn to watch a classic film or interesting new release over scrolling TikToks and reels. Tell me that is not infinitely more romantic and memorable?
- Go to an art museum or pull out the colored pencils and paints you’ve had stashed away for far too long. Bob Ross Night was one of my favorite dates to this day. Allow yourself to be a beginner. Fail. Get messy. Get SOMETHING on that paper. Color outside the lines. Break the rules. Break the mental box. Break the psychological conditioning and the toxic need for perfectionism
- Get your photos printed! Look at them in a printed album or frame them to admire on your wall rather than scrolling them in your digital album. Remember: your photos are not yours unless they’re in your hand.
- Go on a hunt for your favorite vinyl at your local music or antique store. Listen to a physical vinyl album or CD over depression-inducing snippets of ‘trending audio’. Make yourself or your love a personalized Spotify playlist! Find new artists. Learn their names. Support your local artist or best of all, learn an instrument yourself. And the opposite? Sit in silence.
- If you really feel like getting uncomfortable, sit down and write. Write anything that comes to mind. Write until your hand cramps. Write until you’ve spilled all your guts. And when all the surface-level word vomit is out, sit and write a letter to someone you love. Tell them the things you never say. Tell them how you love them and why you love them and the impact they’ve had on your life. Say all the things you’d say at their funeral. Be bold. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Say it now, before it’s too late.
- And when it comes to love, take your time. Romance them. Listen to them. Learn about them. Fall in love with every little thing about them. The birth mark on their calf. The way their eyes light up when they talk about the clouds. The wheeze of laughter that escapes them involuntarily when you make them laugh. Fall in love with slow Sundays, messy hair, and the way they fall asleep reading a book (every time, without fail).
Conclusion
It is in these small moments that lightning has struck poetry into the minds of the great writers of our time. The blank page of am essay that inspired the epic journey of a small hobbit and a caffe napkin that birthed a beloved wizard. It was the combination of love and concern that inspired the crafting of the recipe for fettuccine alfredo, and the simple challenge of a friend to write a short ghost story that brought one of the most iconic works of Gothic fiction to publication. Over and over again, we see love, a little boredom, gratitude, presence, and stillness as the catalyst for fulfillment, invention, and world-changing creation.
The magic of life is created in the little moments as you become a person of intention and mindfulness. By integrating these practices into your life, you can slow down and embrace the art of romanticizing the everyday, finding stillness amidst the chaos.
This article is an excerpt from Issue No. 2 of our quarterly newspaper, ‘The Art (of) Living’, a physical newspaper shipped to your door on each Equinox and Solstice of the year. If you like what you’ve read, you'll love the physical paper even more! Start your subscription [Here].
Romanticizing life is a choice, just like slowing down is a mindset. There will always be difficulty. There will always be new types of stress, hardship, or challenge. There will always be wasteful and beautiful things to fill our time. But notice how there are always people who can find the magic in the mundane. The people whose soul comes alive at the finding of a simple feather or little flower. And how, regardless of the chaos, there are people who can bring calm to every circumstance because they themselves are grounded and at ease.
How do they do it? How can someone turn the worst situation into a cherished memory, or make even the most prosaic event inspiring?
It all starts with something as simple as slowing your pace. A frenzied nervous system is in a state of panic. Panic induces almost total shutdown of the prefrontal cortex functions and screams “HURRY, HURRY, HURRYYY!!!” Calm souls, romanticizing souls, poetic souls--they have within them an air of stillness, an air of calm.
This is no accident. In reclaiming these little moments-- something as simple as slowing down your hurried pace-- you reconnect to the curiosity, wonder, and observational abilities of higher-level thinking. Higher-level thinking is the foundation for higher-level being.
Oftentimes, it is not that these calm souls have any less to do than you or I. It is that within their own full lives, they choose to reclaim the in-between moments that might otherwise be lost to loud music, endless scrolling, or the lifeless stare of a mental check-out. To these souls, everything holds possibility. Each moment has the chance to produce magic and memory. The little things give them life. They know it, and they are on the lookout for it, all while practicing gratitude for what they already have.
So if you do anything today, walk a bit slower. You have time. There is no need to hurry. You will get there when you get there. And as you slow down, notice how you feel. Notice what you notice.
Look up. Look in. Look around. Look at.
Intentionally pay attention to textures, sights, and sounds. Observe the subtle differences between color shades, voice inflection, and unspoken body language. Look at the texture combinations of outfits and the posture that your fellow humans carry themselves. What can you read in these observations? What can you learn?
Now lay on the ground. Climb on a bench or chair. Look at things in new ways from new angles and new positions. This alone rewires the automated patterns in your brain.
According to Photographic Equilibrium, your brain will fill in ‘gaps’ of what you cannot see. This rule applies specifically at night. When you look at something in the dark for longer than 5 seconds, your brain will overlay your vision (or lack thereof) with an image it thinks it is supposed to be seeing.
Imagine the effect of this in your daily life. Wonder why you can’t see the ketchup in the fridge when you’re looking right at it? Your brain is literally overlaying the belief of ‘I can’t find it’ over your actual vision. The result? You can’t find it.
So how does this apply to slowing down and romanticizing life? Well when you slow down and look at things in new ways, it forces your brain to create new neural connections. This causes your brain, in a sense, to pause and breathe. Instead of filling in your vision or thoughts with old programming--limiting beliefs, insecurity, doubt, etc.--your brain now has the chance to see, believe, or learn something new.
Again, notice the characteristic of the Romantic. Most of them (if not all of them) are obsessed with learning and saying in the NOW. They actively stay present and practice gratitude for what they have, while excitedly pursuing learning. The romantic is queen of paradox. She has everything she could ever need in this moment and she adores all forms of development and learning through travel, high quality literature, appreciating the arts--so on and so forth.
Gratitude and study are an act of rebellion against the automated, unsatisfied machine of modern life. Study requires dedication and conviction. Gratitude requires humility and patience. All traits that the beast of instant gratification and rampant consumerism despise.
The souls most fulfilled in life find joy in everyday beauties. She muses. She feels. Converses and creates. She looks at and loves little details and quiet moments. She sees existence as art.
Tools & Tips to Slow Down and Romanticize More:
How else can one slow down and romanticize life? How can you become an artist of stillness? A few of my favorite things are...
- Play a board game, card game, or sport instead of watching one. Invent a game or host a game night with friends or family.
- Read a newspaper or physical book (preferably a classic) instead of reading soul-sucking news on your phone or low-level literature by the light of your kindle. Better yet, go on a bookish date night to your local library or book store.
- Plan a movie night with pjs and popcorn to watch a classic film or interesting new release over scrolling TikToks and reels. Tell me that is not infinitely more romantic and memorable?
- Go to an art museum or pull out the colored pencils and paints you’ve had stashed away for far too long. Bob Ross Night was one of my favorite dates to this day. Allow yourself to be a beginner. Fail. Get messy. Get SOMETHING on that paper. Color outside the lines. Break the rules. Break the mental box. Break the psychological conditioning and the toxic need for perfectionism
- Get your photos printed! Look at them in a printed album or frame them to admire on your wall rather than scrolling them in your digital album. Remember: your photos are not yours unless they’re in your hand.
- Go on a hunt for your favorite vinyl at your local music or antique store. Listen to a physical vinyl album or CD over depression-inducing snippets of ‘trending audio’. Make yourself or your love a personalized Spotify playlist! Find new artists. Learn their names. Support your local artist or best of all, learn an instrument yourself. And the opposite? Sit in silence.
- If you really feel like getting uncomfortable, sit down and write. Write anything that comes to mind. Write until your hand cramps. Write until you’ve spilled all your guts. And when all the surface-level word vomit is out, sit and write a letter to someone you love. Tell them the things you never say. Tell them how you love them and why you love them and the impact they’ve had on your life. Say all the things you’d say at their funeral. Be bold. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Say it now, before it’s too late.
- And when it comes to love, take your time. Romance them. Listen to them. Learn about them. Fall in love with every little thing about them. The birth mark on their calf. The way their eyes light up when they talk about the clouds. The wheeze of laughter that escapes them involuntarily when you make them laugh. Fall in love with slow Sundays, messy hair, and the way they fall asleep reading a book (every time, without fail).
Conclusion
It is in these small moments that lightning has struck poetry into the minds of the great writers of our time. The blank page of am essay that inspired the epic journey of a small hobbit and a caffe napkin that birthed a beloved wizard. It was the combination of love and concern that inspired the crafting of the recipe for fettuccine alfredo, and the simple challenge of a friend to write a short ghost story that brought one of the most iconic works of Gothic fiction to publication. Over and over again, we see love, a little boredom, gratitude, presence, and stillness as the catalyst for fulfillment, invention, and world-changing creation.
The magic of life is created in the little moments as you become a person of intention and mindfulness. By integrating these practices into your life, you can slow down and embrace the art of romanticizing the everyday, finding stillness amidst the chaos.
This article is an excerpt from Issue No. 2 of our quarterly newspaper, ‘The Art (of) Living’, a physical newspaper shipped to your door on each Equinox and Solstice of the year. If you like what you’ve read, you'll love the physical paper even more! Start your subscription [Here].
