Columns 1-Starbucks Cofee

We live in a world in which communication is essential. It is impossible now a day for you to be totally incommunicable. There is always a way to find you. Calling your cell phone, your friend’s cell phone, your mother’s, your brother’s, or your boyfriend’s… That also means that it is impossible for you to disappear for a while and just be alone. But in our world nobody wants to be alone. That is the message of all movies: be with someone is always better than being “all by yourself” (who has never seen René Zellweger in Bridget Jones’s Diary). Well, turns out that sometime it’s not. There are moments in which there is no better company that yourself. But we are all afraid to say and even to think that maybe it is good to be all by ourselves for once in a while. That’s right, even if you’re not George Clooney in Up in the air you may want to carry no one but you in your bag. Because sometimes, that bag with only you inside get pretty fucking heavy. But who wants to sit in a coffee shop alone? The answer is quite simple: no one. We never ever sit in coffee shops alone by choice. Ever. We may be alone while we’re waiting for Alice to show up, we also may take our new book for a walk at Starbucks, we may even draw in napkins, we may eat alone in a restaurant, we may play solitaire in our cell phone, and we may chat with a friend while we’re sitting in a Starbucks table alone. The truth is that we are never alone because we feel more comfortable with a book, an Ipod, a cell phone, a friend, a person, a cup of coffee and a cheese muffin. Because that thing brings us company and we don’t feel alone: we are apparently doing something. But try this: try to sit ALONE, without your cell phone (leave it at home, I dare you), with no watch (stop thinking that you’re able to control time: surprise, you are not), with no friend, no piece of paper, no pen, no Ipod or any source of music (stop thinking that you may actually choose everything from your latte, to your husband, passing by your hair cut, and the song you want to hear…). Yep, that’s right, just sit with nothing that may “connects you to the world”, just be with yourself for a while. Get to know you. We live constantly thinking that we must meet a bunch of people to be happy, but try first to understand who you are. But while you are sitting in this green chair in front of a brown little table with no book, no coffee, and no laptop, try to feel things around you. Stop thinking about your problems, the things you have to do… Stop worrying. Just look at the cars parking in the streets. Take a look in the men and women hurrying. Just look at the colors they are wearing, how the feet move, how they handle their cell phones, how they put their lipstick, how they say goodbye, how they pass the street, how they try to worm themselves. Pay attention to the things you have never payed attention to. Just look for once what is around you. Don’t think in yourself, but discover what kind of details you find interesting. Try to find out what your favorite sitting position is in this particular chair. Do nothing for once in your life. Live. Look. Feel. Be. Be the others. Look at them. Listen to the awful song playing in the coffee shop, a song that you don’t like at all, but that somehow feats perfectly in your activity. Just stop trying to control everything, stop choosing or having the illusion that you choose what you want. Just find out what you like to think of when you are not working, not doing what you’re supposed to, not relaxing either: just living. Just being yourself. What are you thinking about? Do not worry. Take 10 minutes of your time, 15, 20, half an hour if you’re brave, and 50 minutes if you’re enjoying it. Just do nothing at all. Make an empty space in your mind but without doing meditation for it. Just feel that empty space. Just look, smell, listen, feel… See how that man barely sits in the chair that he’s already texting? Oh my god, he must be so busy. And he’ll probably think you’re not. That’s a mistake, you do a lot of things, in fact, your days are so filled that you cannot waste a few minutes to take a look at this guy: you have things to do more important that figuring out what you enjoy. Anyway, that’s unnecessary: you already know what you appreciate or not, so let’s not waste our time living our life, life’s short afterall, isn’t it?