To live at the speed of being human means to engage the senses. 

How many times does a day, a week, a year fly by, seemingly remembered as only a continuous blur of digital files, boring snacks, and binged shows. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with any one of those things—in fact, they can be quite helpful at certain times. But too often, their overuse collapses into a single experience; to feeling like you’re on a carousel that’s running away with you. This restless, slipping feeling points to a truth of our reality as beings meant to inhabit a world of space and time. While our minds can easily race away with ideas or delight in the myriad worlds available online, to live at the speed of human means engaging the senses. Doing so provides cogs for the spinning whirl of our lives, traction and meaning for ideas and relationships. 

At this point, we can still manage to get carried away, envisioning our sense engagement as a pre-dawn hike to a mountaintop or a masterful three-tier confection dripping with roses. It’s fun to fancy these thrilling sense experiences, but if they never come to fruition, we’re still left grasping for intentionality, for a real sense of the world and our existence in it. Even if achieved, such a highly specific and grandiose view of intentional action leads to its being a rarity in our life instead of a consistent, steadying mindset—a random, unsettling swell rather than the fruit of a constant current. We need an ordinary framework of intentionality, opportunities that can be concurrent to our lives at home and at work, building on habits already in place. Starting from the simplest point of each of the five senses provides an easy transition toward a rhythm that naturally keeps time with our physical nature.

Sight—Photography

• We take pictures all the time, don’t we? However, they’re frequently studied and purpose-driven; this time, look for what naturally catches your eye and give it some attention. Perhaps it’s the morning sun against the green of a plant, or a shadow that makes you think of your great-uncle’s profile, or the patterns of fiber in a curtain or blanket. Get a camera and play with it, changing angles and trying different edits on it, letting the camera be the catalyst for fully seeing your physical environment. 

Sound—Simple Music

• Music that somehow uses restraint and simplicity can be a reset for the ears. This will be different for everyone, but Gregorian chant is a good example. Music is often entertaining (as it should be!), but a song of limited motif and muted tones doesn’t so much pass the time as it does engage with time, having a measured melodic pace that can foster and lengthen our attention.

Touch—Handwriting

• The mechanics of hand-writing can be fascinating. The unique ways we dot our i’s and cross our t’s speak to the increased individuality that often attends engagement with the physical side of our nature. Write down a quote or prayer in your own hand and put it somewhere you’ll see it. Write a letter to a friend or a person you admire. If you’ve always wanted to journal but also never write in the beautiful journals you have, go ahead and by the plainest one you can find and fill it in—think of it as an everyday pair of shoes for your pen.

Taste—Garnish Food

• We all have to eat, but we don’t all have the time to pull out the fancy dishes and wash them by hand or knead and bake a fresh loaf of bread everyday. But most every kind of food can be quickly brightened up with seasoning or a garnish. Explore the spice rack and discover what delights your taste buds. If you can, plant a few herbs like chives and basil and treat your breakfast eggs and leftover lasagna to a whole new life. 

Smell—Lighted Candles

• Nothing else makes you so gently aware of the passage of time like the gradual diminishing of a candle and the simultaneous enhancement of aroma. Whether it’s a comforting lavender scent for evening or the clear warm scent of beeswax for taking care of business, candles help ground our sense of place and time.