Sometimes, I feel conditioned never to look beyond the first ten feet of the earth. Watch where you're going, don't run into things, avoid being eaten by bears. Modern life!
When I remind myself to look up, there’s so much great stuff. Trees, antennae, water towers, buildings. Airplanes, birds, superheroes. Never mind the visual pollution of smoke, contrails, and billboards. Nifty things, natural and man-made.
Clouds in particular are nifty. They’re almost always changing, even if you look at the same patch of sky. They have pleasing shapes, and just a little bit of texture. Simple pleasure, clouds are.
And sunsets! Hooo boy, those are great. I thought they were overrated for a long time, but boy was I wrong. Colors, dynamics, fading off into darkness. I'm pretty sure sunsets invented the word "poetic".
Ed. This originally appeared in my Internet Todo List for Enthusiastic Thinkers (defunct as of 2023). It's an email thing you can (could) subscribe to. When you do (did), good things come came) to you, often via email. It's free, and it bears no shilling for other people.
