The idea of giving every moment in your life your undivided attention, as described in buddhist teachings, is designed to keep us living in the present moment. It, over time, allows us to give sanctity to everything, to live every moment with presence and intention.

I’m reminded of the head and the heart, and my love of long-lost trades and pioneer lifestyles. He said he wrote Down in the Valley because he felt like nothing he did in his life had any weight. So he dreamnt of being “a slave to an age old trade/like ridin’ around on railcars and workin’ long days.” I tend to agree with this, and have made attempts to try to do things in older ways, or at least appreciate them for what they were. It has inspired me to take an interest in nature and gardening, an entire world I had basically ignored.

I wonder if pursuing activities that have “weight” is simply the way he lives with presence and intention. Buddhism, or at least this book I’m reading, might argue that anything can be given “weight” or sanctity if we appreciate it in the moment and provide it with our care and attention.

Or maybe there are certain things in life that make it easier for us to slow down our internal dialogue and simply live in the moment. Maybe guiding a sail or wielding a shovel or laying railroad tracks appear to have more “weight” because they demand our undivided attention. Everything we do in modern times is created for multi-tasking. It’s fascinating to me how I can sit in a room with my roommates, and we have the TV on but we all also have our laptops up and are reading articles online or watching you-tube videos and also talking to each other and texting other people on our phones. The rule at my father’s house is absolutely no cell phones at the table. And even when I’m enjoying myself and having a good time, I feel myself itching to check my text messages or see if I got a new e-mail.

It’s something we’re all guilty of. And maybe that’s why I want to go hiking and learn rock climbing and teach myself how to garden…because when you do those things, if you want to do them right, you have to give them your undivided attention. You have to be present in that moment. You can’t watch TV or text without disengaging from what you’re doing. Each moment requires your intention.

So it makes sense that I want to drink whiskey and don cowboy boots and buy myself a .38 smith and wesson. I thought for awhile I was just romanticizing an era, playing dress up and perpetuating stereotypes. And in a way I am, because it’s expression. But I think all of the desire for that superficial stuff comes from a deeper longing for a simpler time. Not simpler in the romanticized sense, because I know that image is false, but simpler in the fact that in order to survive or get by in those times, people had to do their work with intention. They had to stop what they were doing to cook a meal, and they had to focus on it and not get lost in whatever was on the nearest screen and just wait for some timer to go off. They had to pay attention, slow down, watch, analyze, and be present with their activity. And I don’t believe for a second that people back then were somehow better or more connected to the universe than I am here in my modern time, but I do believe they had more opportunity to do so and to be so.

I live in a world of distractions. Of houses built out of cheap materials and unskilled labor, of microwaveable meals in boxes with 2-step instructions, of services that will clean my house and cut my lawn and teach my children to read. I feel so alienated from everything—from food production to the products I buy to the increasing separation with nature. It’s like instead of working with the universe and what is here naturally, we’ve instead done everything in our power to construct barriers between it and ourselves. We use bug spray and hand sanitizer and shut ourselves out from the world. Now, these are great and useful inventions, but sometimes I think they make us forget that the world is not out to get us, that we are apart of the world and one with the world. We came from this earth, and it has its dangers, but it is also full of wonderful remedies that can heal us.

So I’m done with being distracted. I may never quit the modern world with my modern conveniences, but I can live with more intention. I can stop multitasking and focus on the task at hand, even if it’s as mundane as folding the laundry. I can learn to sit still outside and watch the wind blow for half an hour without checking my phone.

I can try to live in the present.