For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper
Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.
-Joseph Fasano
Coincidentally, a couple of days before I came across this poem, I had been conversing with a friend, telling her about a sense of detachment I have been feeling from my surroundings. Everything is so fleeting, I remember saying, so brittle, I feel like I barely touch the days I am living. I cannot recall anything from this past week, and it’s already Wednesday when, I swear, yesterday was Friday.
She nodded at the wine glass within my fingers, and, after a moment, simply said:
What does the wine taste like?
What?
You are halfway through your glass. What does it taste like?
I glanced at the burgundy liquid cupped within the glass, slightly warm, its edges stained with my favourite cinnamon-coloured lipstick.
Dry?
She raised an eyebrow, and I knew she was not happy with the answer. And I soon understood why, too. I had told her earlier that after wandering the shop aisles last week, I was very happy to find it, because the bottle was pretty, and I was excited to try it with her and turn it into a candle holder afterwards, or a vase for a single dried rose. And now, I was experiencing just what I had been complaining of - minutes with her were passing by like a lovely fall of snow behind drawn-together curtains. I was not really tasting the wine, the company, the starless night unfolding behind the window. I looked down at the glass again, and focused.
Like Summer fruit. Cherries, maybe. And it smells like smoke, a little. It reminds me of the one we had in Florence, at that cafe where we spoke with the American guy.
Now a smile was slowly blooming in her expression.
Good. I think if you pay a little more attention to everything just as you did now, you will begin to feel closer to your life.
Why is there an increasing distance between us and our lives? When did each of our acts to be accomplished with care and moments to be enjoyed become a mere task to be ticked complete? What are we trying to free ourselves of? By the end of the evening (and the wine bottle), we came to a simple, rather obvious conclusion - by trying to save it, we are really giving away our time. To simpler solutions, to technology, to the quicker way of doing things. Really, I asked her, when was the last time I used an actual paper notepad for my grocery store list? When was the last time you brought your bedroom alight not with a light switch, but with candles?
The evening unfolded around us. The Moon leaned in a little closer in curiosity, tipping its cup of silver light and spilling it all over the table. Our phones were forgotten and the hours grew transparent. Winter-defying warmth and faint scents of sugar and wine lingered around us. For the first time in weeks, someone else’s words reached into my mind beyond my own. I decided to allow for my dear friend’s voice to take me by the hand and silence my ceaseless inner whispers, which had been rumbling about having to clean up my room after this, and the right moment to interrupt with an offer of more cake, and how I should tilt my head ever so slightly to the side so that I would more evidently appear to be listening. We gave ourselves entirely to the moment, to the stories we exchanged and the syrupy notes of our laughter, and I could have sworn that just then, the universe stretched ever so slightly to make additional room for minutes swollen with such sweetness.
And I am not here to tell you about all the ways in which technology is destroying this world, or about how the screen is really a shield from our own lives (after all, I am composing this very article from my Notes app). But did you know that to take your sweet time is to extend your sweet life?
The five minutes of staring at a moka pot, waiting for the first drops of coffee to flow, is an exquisite amount of time for you to reminisce about the few remaining moments of your childhood which linger with surprising clarity in the lands of your mind; to grasp the strings of your morning-messy thoughts and try to untangle them. The seconds you take to press the button of your coffee machine are not.
Sending a text message provides immediacy so very important in our world. But if you send your beloved friend a letter, I promise they will keep it for years. Immediacy saves you a few minutes, but intimacy stretches them like taffy, the sweetness of each second filling you to the tips of your fingers and toes.
Put away your phone while you eat. Not just your phone - your laptop, your book, journal, whatever it is you use to entertain yourself while you rush through your meal. Listen to yourself instead, to the candle flame, to the soft wail of the wind outside. Think about the things it could be wailing for. Ponder about your food, and about the places you dream of visiting one day, and the unfamiliar tongues of their songs. Listen to what this supper for one has to say, and you might just hear the music you become when all else around you falls silent.
And when was the last time you listened to a song? Not just heard it, not just played it, but felt the words thrum heartbeat-soft along the skin of your forearms? Felt each version of you that has ever listened to it, each a little changed and still the same? Allowed it to teach you that everything changes, that everything stays?
And do not forget to visit your friends, not just a quick call or a catch-up over coffee. But go there, to them, even if it is raining, and bring something sweet, alongside all of yourself, so that when they hear your knock on their door, it will sing “I am here for you, for you!”. After all, there is so much love in you. What wondrous things are you going to do with it? Where will you plant it, and how long are you willing to stay and see what will grow?
Oh, and please do kindly find the patience to peel yourself an orange, a pomegranate, to pit the cherries one by one before you bake the pie. Kiss the wine-coloured stains off your fingers, work your way past the bitter, and relish the sweet which lies at the core of things.
Yes, we are all busy, and often we do not have much time to linger, to be. But then again, time is all we have; being is about the only thing we can do. Let us not forget or shrink away from it. I wish for you to realise that the work is always worth the sweetness, that the stretches of sorrow are always worth the moments of beauty. I wish for you, darling reader, to find love in the task of living.
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