That's My Perch!

We humans spend a surprising amount of time learning how to be present.

We read about mindfulness.
We learn breathing exercises.
We count forward by 5’s and count backwards by 3’s.

We remind ourselves to see, taste, smell, and touch.

Then this morning, I looked out the window at the birds.

They fluttered and chirped around the feeders, bumping each other out of the way. Nothing could be more present than that.

But they weren't trying to live in the moment. They just lived there.

Nobody gave the goldfinch The Seven Habits of Highly Present Birds.
Nobody told them to meditate on the texture of its sunflower seed.

And yet every morning:

FOOD!!!
FRIENDS!!!
THAT'S MY PERCH!!!
GET OFF!!!
Oh look, more food!!!

And somehow that's enough to make them appear tremendously engaged with being alive.

They can come to essentially the same feeder every single day and still behave as though something exciting is happening.

Humans have an extraordinary capacity that birds don't appear to have in the same way. We can revisit yesterday, rehearse tomorrow, reinterpret decade-old memories, and struggle with meaning.

That capacity gives us literature, planning, science, memory, purpose—and also the ability to be physically in one place while mentally living somewhere else.

I don't think the birds are telling us that humans should become simpler and stop thinking.

It's more like they quietly demonstrate something we easily forget:

A life doesn't have to be spectacular for being alive to feel interesting.

Same feeder.
Same seeds.
Same little gang.

And tomorrow morning they'll show up like:

OH MY GOD, THE SEEDS ARE BACK.

Meanwhile, I am watching them and, without doing a single mindfulness exercise, I'm completely there too.

Maybe that's why the feeder gives me something all those mindfulness instructions can't quite manufacture.

I'm not paying attention because I'm supposed to.

I'm paying attention because somehow, I’m genuinely there.