Dateline: Chili’s Branch Headquarters. Basketball on six screens.

You can taste the Paper. 

“Which is more important?”  “The world, other people, and the ‘you’ that exists?”  “Or the world, other people and the ‘you’…you are responding to in your head?”  “The world you are creating moment by moment?”

The television series NCIS Los Angeles features Heddy Lange (Linda Hunt) as a half-pint sized, wily director who is a tea connoisseur. One of her staff gets into tea, finds a blend he knows his boss likes and brews her a cup.  She turns it down.  He asks why.  Turns out he’d brewed the special tea using a tea bag. Heddy says something like, “You can taste the paper.”  The episode goes on and by the end the worker who’d enjoyed the tea brewed in bags before—now agrees that “You can taste the paper.”

What you pay attention to, grows.  What you do not attend to, diminishes.  It’s that simple.  Let’s picture your view of the world and your view of yourself…as a screen made up of tiny pixels of data projected onto a 58 inch plasma.  Since the pixels you pay attention to will multiply and the pixels you ignore will fade…watch how your picture forms.

Take a moment. What does your face look like on your screen?   Your body?   Your friend?   Your past?  Your enemy?  Your future?

Two conversations overheard (“Overheard” is the kindest way of seeing my voyeur tendencies. You’ve been warned. You see a blond, frightfully under-dressed-for-the-hotel-restaurant, in cargo shorts and a T-shirt, chick clicking the keyboard of a red laptop…beware.)

You Can Taste the Paper Conversation 1:  One lady says to her friend who asks if she’s enjoyed her visit to Texas. The lady answers, “We’ve done several interesting things while visiting Texas…(I know, with a nice lady opening like this, I was thinking, ‘Here comes something lovely to hear…but these ladies will fool you.) “…Our friends took us out to see the LBJ Ranch in the hill country….The setting was pretty, but the whole place was ruined by this airstrip that had been placed right in front of the ranch house. The airstrip made the whole place ugly. Ruined it. All I’ll remember is that ugly airstrip.”

Picture that picture…which pixels loom…

You Can Taste the Paper Conversation 2…next:  …In Progress….literally…