Rewriting the Unwritten

I live my life by a number of unwritten rules. One of them is to never eat or drink while walking or having a phone call. My rationale for this is that it's nearly impossible to enjoy the sensations of taste when your mind and body is preoccupied. Flavour is diminished, satisfaction is lost. You only get a finite number of meals if you want to stay lean and I intend to enjoy each one.

The perpetuity of mobile phones has kind of ruined this for me. There was a time that I didn't instinctively reach for my phone each time I sat down with a meal. This habit is so ingrained that if I don't resist it I find my meal or beverage has disappeared unnoticed and the opportunity to walk somewhere or listen to a conversation on a phone has been lost.

In 2022 I discovered walking with a coffee can actually be good. In fact, unless you walk while using your phone screen, it can actually be a more immersive experience that drinking a coffee sitting down. I was enlightened one sunny, winter morning when I ordered a takeaway coffee from a café on a main road (because it keeps the liquid warmer than a cup) and then felt awkward about drinking the coffee in the takeaway cup at the café. So I walked to find a park. But, given it was winter I had sips of the coffee as I walked the backstreets and I felt the sun on my face and I tasted the creamy, bitter goodness and I realised that this experience was a lot better than sitting outside the café scrolling on my phone.

Now it's summer and actually a bit too hot to be walking around drinking coffees. But I figured the same principles would apply to walking around with a beer, and so I packed one for after-dinner trip to the beach. It was extremely pleasant. So I guess my theme for January 2023 will be determining what other unwritten things I need to deal with.

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