On the left you see a picture of my garden hose, the one I failed to turn off after hosing down the front porch. The temperature dropped, the hose popped, and I now have a column of ice reminding me of my absent-mindedness.
I suspect that the results we create in life are slow accretions due to repeated unconscious acts. In this case, a failure to act—to turn off the hose—led to the slow, silent construction of a monument to my air-headedness.
They say that multi-tasking is not good for us. I often discover that, while standing on the front porch hosing it down to make it clean and pretty for guests, I am simultaneously:
– thinking of something clever to say to someone
– making a pot of coffee
– listening to my neighbors computerized, life-size Santa sing Christmas carols because some kid stepped onto their porch and waved his hand in front of the sensor
– in a panic about when I can possibly go Christmas shopping
I wish I could be in the moment. To simply stand on the porch and hose. Nothing but hose. To get lost in the act of hosing. And then, when hosing is done, to be in the moment of being done with hosing, and then to be in the moment of turning off the hose.
But no, I hear the coffee bubbling up, and I drop the hose, and run to turn off the stove before the coffee splatters the burners. And once in the kitchen, I am in the kitchen, smelling coffee, and the hose is no longer on my mind.
All this has nothing to do with presenting, except for the fact that in presenting, you have to be present. You have to concentrate, marshall all your faculties, focus on what you’re saying, read the signals on the faces of your listeners, and pull them back into the moment.
I think the reason I’m so interested in presenting is that I find it to be a relief from the chaos in my mind.