Aligned & Awake: A Horse Chewing an Apple in Surround Sound
A breakfast table, a city street, and the strange ways we’ve forgotten the art of presence, pride, and paying attention.
Aligned & Awake
My reflections on life through travel, human design, energy, astrology, and emotional clarity. Not as a guru. Just one person figuring it out in real time.
Breakfast in a hotel dining room. Tea still steaming, eggs cooling on my plate. A man sits across from me with a plate stacked high.
He was small in stature but enormous in appetite. Fork after fork, huge bites disappearing in seconds. Three chews, maybe, then a swallow. Then again. Then again. The scrape of his fork against the plate was its own percussion, layered under the soundtrack of slurps, smacks, lips working like they'd been hired for overtime.
It sounded like a horse chewing an apple in surround sound.
The nutritionist in me thought, his poor digestion. The woman in me thought, dear God, must it be so loud?
Whether it was culture or habit, what struck me was the absence of curiosity. Travel, after all, is like stepping into someone else's home. You don't plop down on their sofa with muddy boots. You notice. You adapt. You pay attention to how things are done here. Isn't that the point of leaving home in the first place, to be curious about the world outside your own?
Later, walking through the city, I saw the same pattern in a different form. The younger crowd drifting by, phones in hand, shoulders curved like question marks. Clothes rumpled, feet dragging as if the pavement itself had become too heavy.
It wasn't rebellion. It wasn't flair. It was the art of looking like you'd given up before you began.
Watching them drift past made me think of my own twenties. We were broke and still intent on carrying ourselves like we mattered. Shoulders straight, clothes pressed, boots polished. Not to impress anyone else, but because it gave us a little dignity. A quiet pride that made us feel more ourselves.
That's what seems missing now. Not the arrogant kind of pride, the softer one. The kind that shows you care how you move through the world.
Maybe these kids are wildly happy. Perhaps they're thriving. If so, I hope they show it, because when we carry ourselves with pride, it gives the rest of us permission to remember our own.
It brought me back to Wall-E, that Pixar film where humans drift around on hover chairs, soft and oblivious, screens strapped to their noses. No noticing. No curiosity. No pride in being human.
And I wonder, are we headed there? Or are we already there?
The art of presence begins small. In how you chew. How you walk. Whether you look up and take in the place you're standing.
It isn't about changing the world. It's about reminding yourself you're part of it.
And no, you don't need to look happy when you're not. I've had the shite kicked out of me this year, I know that face well. Pride isn't about pretending. It's about carrying yourself like the person you're becoming. Shoulders back, chin lifted, even when life feels heavy. Embody the future self who knows she belongs here. The same way you'd step into another country with curiosity and respect, why not step into your own life the same way?
Tell me…
This second act is about noticing again: ourselves, each other, the world. Drop me a note: what’s the last thing you really saw?
The last thing I really saw was a rainbow here in Ireland. We were walking down the street in the pouring rain just trying to get some steps in and it appeared. I stopped to get a photo, but then stopped to just take it in, until I was thoroughly soaked and headed back home. I find I am very quiet and observant and prefer to just sit and take the world in, or walk and take the world in, but often others want my input or response...and I find that tiring. I just want to be.
Those are some very valid thoughts! Just got dropped off at the airport by my stepdad and had the same conversation. In German we have a saying: “Früher war alles besser” which basically means “back then, everything was better.” I know, I sounded like an old person saying that, haha. But it’s true and it ties in with your observations, things really do change so quickly.
Why does no one seem to have proper hobbies anymore? Ask someone “What’s your hobby?” and chances are, you won’t get a clear answer from the younger generation. I think in the future the real flex will be allowing yourself to live slowly, travelling, spending more time offline, and being able to hold meaningful conversations for longer than ten minutes.