Entertainment Within Reach, or Slowing Down

So, a couple of things happened in the last couple of days that got me thinking.
First, had a bad storm come through Knoxville yesterday. Knocked out the power at my place for about an hour. I took part of the time in silent solitude to contemplate what defines entertainment and, by extension, existence.
The first thing to pop into mind came while I was staring at the temporarily useless t.v. And I thought to myself, as long as there is no power, no one knows what's going on in the rest of the world, Hollywood in particular. And from there, you can't be jealous of possessions and fame if you can't see them (because that's basically all they're good for, is to be seen). Then, it was refreshing to know that, while I sat there without power, I couldn't reach Hollywood, and Hollywood couldn't reach me.
So then I got to thinking, if not the media, what do I have to entertain me? It's amazing what people can have at their own fingertips that requires zero electricity (although candle light might be useful). Pleasure reading was the first thing to pop into mind (speaking of which, I just started The Reagan Diaries- I'll let you know how that goes). Also, I love to play guitar, and no electricity is a great time to go unplugged on the acoustic. Suddenly the world becomes much more natural. No fans buzzing, no refrigerators humming, just pure musical sound. Maybe cutting the electricity off for an hour a day wouldn't be such a bad thing (so long as it wasn't 100 degrees outside, I mean, thank God for the rain and clouds keeping it cool).
Then I took the rest of my power outage in the form of a nap...
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The second dumb thing came this morning. I was driving back to the office from a trip to Probate Court, when both sides of Neyland Drive traffic came to a dead stop. For what, you ask? A flock of geese. It took them about 2 minutes to get completely across all four lanes of traffic, what with the waddling and short legs and all. Add to that the lack of a concept of time.
And there it was: our concept of time. How often in a day do we slow down? Who exactly controls our concept of time, anyway? I believe there are very few people who say they are in control of their own time, timing, or destiny. No one marches to the beat of their own drum anymore. It is constantly drowned out by the pernicious beating of everyone else's drums, beaten with impunity and entitlement. "My drum's just as good as yours, so you have to listen to mine!" "Will you listen to my drum if I listen to yours?" "Of course not! Listening to your drum will harm my drumming!" "What about my drumming?" "You're drum sounds backward, you white redneck male!" But I digress, that has nothing to do with geese...
The point is this: all to often, we don't find time for ourselves anymore. We don't slow down and enjoy the view. We're so worried about not letting life pass us by that we forget to look at it. A lot of us probably wouldn't know life if it did pass us. So stop and smell the roses. And while you're at it, help the geese across the road.
Next time, more technology. And a gratuitous picture:
A pool party during the Federalist Society Student Leadership Conference. An awesome time. Venue was pretty cool, too.