Witness 14: Savouring The Simple
Spending our time in awareness
A QUIET JOY
FROM YOU
A tuna sandwich. Good quality tuna with various accompaniments encased in thin crispy bread. It was visually appealing and I started salivating immediately. The crunch and smell as I took the first bite, and the different taste profiles danced on my tongue. Wow. It was a sensory explosion. I watched the filling oozing out and was in awe by how everything worked together in synchronicity and such perfect harmony. I pondered why something so simple could evoke all the senses; there might just be a big lesson for humanity in this humble sandwich.
Lystra, London
A REFLECTION FROM ME
We haven't forgotten simple pleasures. We know the names of the things that delight us, in their smallness and we can feel the pleasure of them walking through our bodies. From tuna sandwiches to powdery pink clouds. We know how much of an impact simple pleasures can have.
We might not have forgotten, but in an ever-increasing materialistic culture, the hierarchy is often swayed to what we can buy and consume, rather than the simplicity of our experiences.
Sure, you need to buy the ingredients to make the meal that might feel transcendent, but what I'm talking about is how we experience, savour and linger in that meal. How we change our relationship to what we already have or what we are yet to get.
Are we scoffing our sandwiches on the way out of the door? Or are we allowing our senses to be our dining companion and allowing it to go beyond “I just need to eat” and into something that feels pretty magical? Are we buying the perfume that everyone's raving about on TikTok to quickly spritz it a few times and forget it exists? Or are we allowing the fragrant notes to greet our nose and weave emotive stories from what we discover?
There's such a difference.
When we speak of minimal living, living sustainably or more simply, it isn't only in consuming less or doing less. As my Philosophy of Doing Less, Being Present and Feeling More, suggests we also need to be present with what we have, what we eat, what we do and what we wear. To spend time in awareness and appreciation with it all. To make our skincare routines feel more like pleasure-soaked rituals, easy lunches that feel like love letters to the nourishment of our bodies and feeling each fibre comforting our skin in blanket-like sweaters.
We can walk past the most illuminating sunsets. Shrug our shoulders at public art as we see it so often. Or, we can pause, breathe and let it move us.
There's a richness that can be found in the most simple of things, and it's not always in the thing itself, but in how we choose to be in the experience of the thing.
At the end of the day, a tuna sandwich can just be a tuna sandwich. But a drizzle of your time, care, love and attention on top of toasted bread, is when it becomes something else entirely.
Something worth savouring.