What's the Rush? Why We Can't Seem to Slow Down

So in today's world, we seem to be running, walking even, in a million different directions at about a hundred miles a minute. Why is that?

When we're slated to die eventually, why make it come any faster, any closer than it really needs to be?

Technology.

Seriously - think about it! Without computers, smart phones, e-readers, email, social media, whatever else that involves humans staring blankly at screens for hours on end with no real true interaction, what's left? We've completely lost our ability to have conversations (I'm not talking about 'text message' conversations people) but live, human-to-human, person-to-person conversations.  The valuable kind where you can actually see their live reaction, hear the emotions in their voice, smell the sweat when you're getting into a really heated debate, feel the tension in the room building...

It's magnetic, and yet we're denying ourselves the luxury of interacting as humans are naturally and genetically programmed to do.

I once read a book for a communication course in college about the evolution of gossip. It was actually a fascinating read - it argued that since the dawn of human existence, humans have a natural need for cultivating relationships. The human ancestor, the chimpanzee, had some of the first instances of gossip and interaction as we know it today. I know it might seem crazy, but for real people - chimps, females mostly, would get in a line and groom one another and gossip (yes I said gossip!!) to each other during this process. So in theory, cleanliness for survival was part of the social experience, and vice-versa one could argue.

So what are we to take away from this?

I for one am just as much a victim of technology as the next person - I mean I'm writing this blog post on a computer for crying out loud. (It happens when I can't sleep, can you blame me?) But I like to think that I keep a decent balance of being technologically savvy and being a normal, conversing human being with thoughts, emotions, opinions, fears, hopes, dreams, the whole shebang.

One thing I really hate is when I see people on public transit, reading their e-readers and texting and scrolling on their phones, never once having just a normal, natural human conversation. I'm not saying you need to strike up a conversation with every person you see on your way home from work on the subway. Trust me, I did it for years and love my peace and quiet just as much as you probably do. Especially after long, hard hours at the office. All I'm asking is that you look up - on occasion, just glance at the person next to you, see if you can find a window of opportunity to smile, or just laugh or offer them your two cents if you happen to stumble into someone else's conversation. It won't hurt you, and it certainly won't be artificial like that phone you're holding. It won't have a conversation with you naturally (you could say Siri might, but she's still robotic and I still find her creepy)...

So get off your phones people! Look around you! You're not going to learn the value of life and love, health and happiness, without some conversations - the live ones.

One more quick story (too late I know!) - I was in CVS today waiting for a prescription, and of course 'fifteen minutes' turns into about a half hour. Whatever, not like I was dying to get somewhere else, but no one seriously likes to wait for something they don't have to. One of those other natural human things - a desire to get something now, and be done with it.

My point is this - I was sitting patiently and a guy comes up with his niece, an older Italian guy with some years on him, and started telling me jokes. He not only made me laugh, he had me talking to him for a while during our wait. He smiled and laughed back, sharing experiences, talking about his cruises, telling me how he quit smoking after years of it and that was the best decision he ever made. Real good solid HUMAN things.

Everyone needs to realize that people are naturally curious and social creatures - you, me, the gal on the subway, the guy at the pharmacy - and we're all in this world together to create and live and converse and later die (sorry for that bit of morbidity in the line of transcendalism, my bad). But we're all supposed to have conversations, to share experiences, to live together, to share each other's feelings and toils, to discuss serious and funny topics, to smile and laugh together at each other's jokes.

My vote is this: Humans are and always will be socially interactive, so instead of our 'social media' doing it for us, let's do the talking ourselves, shall we?

Patience is Indeed a Virtue

I'm baaaaaack!

Okay so...where did we leave off? Oh, not sure? Good. Me neither. Doesn't matter.

Today I found myself at a loss of reasons as to why I'm still unemployed. Yes, lost my job in June due to lay offs and thought I would land something soon. Not three plus months later, but soon. Not happening.

So obviously I've had this pretty major setback, and you'd think I'd take it real bad. Which I did, eventually. At first, it felt just like a blur, one I somewhat expected and one I even predicted (and turned out to be right. Which makes me think I should just be a psychic, but that's another matter saved for another day and another post). But I thought I would have a worse and more intense reaction to getting laid off. Turns out I didn't, and I handled it better than my family, boyfriend, friends, co-workers, and even boss thought I would. Props to me!

Moral of this story though...I was fine at first, somehow got my life in order (at least relatively speaking and as much as I humanly and legally could) and I was good for a while. Enjoyed it even. Hell, it was summer and I had a couple of teacher friends on break and was going to the pool and beach and getting tanned all for free on unemployment! Sweet! (I was hardcore looking for jobs though before you report me to the IRS...if you check my Gmail, you will see over 50 job applications sent within the first week, so yes I was being productive).

Then I hit a wall...proverbial of course, but it might as well have been a real concrete one. Solid steel beams built in with concrete. That bad. Injuries sustained to the ego, tear marks streaming down my face, I had lost it. Completely and utterly lost my cool.

Nothing had panned out for a while, and even though I was getting interviews and everything, nothing stuck. I was feeling pretty crappy, as I'm sure anyone else in my position would be feeling.

Summer went by, (Fast!), and suddenly I found myself alone and still without any solid offers. Sure, I had one or two come my way but getting double their proposed salary in unemployment benefits...yeah, sorry buddy, I'm going to stick it out a while longer. Thanks but no thanks.

Now I find myself berating myself, doubting myself, running out of free friends and time and medical benefits, the whole shebang. Nothing is going my way!

This is crazy and very unnerving because for the first time in my life that I can really remember, I am without work and it is not my fault. Things are not in my control and I'm doing everything I can but I still am getting nowhere.

This. is. driving. me. NUTS!!!!!!!!!

Depression settles in like an unwelcome guest, and I find myself going stir crazy but not wanting to vent at ever walking pedestrian for fear they might catch my temporary insane boredom disease. I feel like a leper without the obvious physical signs but with all the emotion signs to lead them to believe I had in fact been bit. By the boredom-going-out-of-my-mind-with-crazy-freetime-I'm-going-to-kill-someone bug. Not super contagious, thank goodness.

Suggestions as to what to do? Because I'm all out.

All I can think is that God is perhaps finally giving me time to (for once, or at least for once in a very long time) think about my needs, my concerns, my problems, myself. Is that so crazy?  God is teaching me a very important lesson I probably never truly grasped - PATIENCE. Be patient, and things will work out the way they were meant to. God never gives you something you can't handle, so maybe this is my chance to figure out some time to work on myself and learn the art and virtue of PATIENCE.

Not something I'm great at or even remotely come close to comprehending, but hey, considering I have nothing else to do, I'll give it a shot. :)

The Here and Now: The Gift of The Present

So many of us in today's society go through life at a rapid speed - so fast that we often don't remember to truly live in the moment and cherish every second. We're always thinking of the past - what we could do to change it or what we could have said or done, and also in the future - what we could be doing, what we want to do later, what we wish we were, etc. Too many times we're thinking of things or concepts that have either already happened or haven't happened (and maybe won't happen).

We can't keep living like this! If you really critically think about this, if we continuously think about the past and what we could be doing in the future, we're never really experiencing the 'here and now' - in other words, we're not truly experiencing. We are simply agents of thought, consumed with the ideas of before and after, never actually now. It's crazy, isn't it?!?!

So why is it that we can't stop this train of thought? (Literally, going back and forward)...

Well, I have a couple of ideas.

First, our society dictates that we're supposed to feel retribution for our actions, that we need to think critically about subjects, to contemplate life's happenings, to think about what we did and really learn from it. Yeah, that's all well and good, but how much of what we've done in the past do we truly and seriously learn from? Not much, I'd say. At least, not enough to keep thinking about it constantly and not living in the real moment.

Second, many of us are so entranced with the idea of the future - the unknown, the mystery of the future, the unwritten. We want to know what will happen, we have goals we want to achieve and start planning for them now for the future...Again, all well and good, but still doesn't make us take a second, right this second!, and say, 'Oh yeah, remember the moment of now? Literally, this split second, fleeting, changing, moving, never to be replaced or seen again?' Yeah, that's what I thought. You didn't...And don't typically ever do.

I propose a radical concept here: Forget the past, dispose of your thoughts of the future, just for today. And think about just moving...Moving forward and continuously in motion...Floating, coasting, evolving. This is living.

 

Try it. Just for a while. You might see that you really enjoy it. 

Now that's life changing. 

The Loss of Simplicity: What Today's Society Can Learn from the Basic Tenets of Life, Love and Humble Prayer

Ever wonder how our society became so far removed from the study of prayer and life of monastic life? Maybe not many of you, but I do. 

Today I was reading Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth and got to thinking, What ever happened to the old medieval ways of thinking? How did society get to be so consumed with themselves? It seems crazy, but I wish we still had that kind of life...Not completely of course, I do enjoy the comforts of home and technology just as much as the next person, but I can't help but wonder why we don't have that same passion for life and love and prayer?

I'm not exactly what you would call a 'religious person', but I do believe in a higher power and the maxim that things happen for a reason, whether or not it's good or bad, or whether or not it's evident to us now or later. And going along with that, I think our society as a whole has lost that sense of simplicity and purpose to work for something greater than ourselves; something that gives you the feeling that life will go on as it always has; that humans are small and insignificant and rare; that life is precious and so unbelievably unpredictable.

So much we don't know in life today, we try and explain and reason. While that's a great thing in so many ways, I think that leaves little to no room for the fact that we really don't know everything, and we can't. We will never achieve total and complete knowledge of life on Earth - it's just not possible, and it wasn't meant to be. We have to learn that learning will never serve us all the answers. And we have to accept that.

Reconnecting with our simplistic past would be so wonderful - I for one would be less stressed with 'keeping up with the Joneses' and running 110 miles an hour everyday and never feeling adequate - and we could focus on what really truly matters - life, love, and graciousness. We absolutely need to reestablish this connection - without it, I think life isn't worth as much - essentially we're living blind.

So many of us these days are constantly running - running to the next appointment, running to our jobs, running for exercise, running to the grocery store, running away from our problems, running into the next relationship - we're consistently running to or away from something. And that's not a nice way to live - you must take some time to enjoy the ride, and accept life as it comes, otherwise you're fooling yourself into thinking that you're really living, when you're not at all, not even close.

I say this as I'm blogging and writing on a computer - quite the oxymoron, I know. But at the same time, at least I recognize that I need to spend more time living in the moment, that patience is indeed a virtue, that loving others is such a fantastic feeling and accomplishment, that mediating on your life and what's happening in the world is a good thing, and that we can't ever really control everything - and that should be a relief, not a burden!

Join me in offering a prayer of thanks - not to anyone in particular, God or Allah or a simple higher power or even yourself will do - to the life we currently lead, and to the one that still exists in the future. Hopefully we can all learn a thing or two about ancient societies and their dedication to silence, simple existence, acts of thankfulness, prayer, meditation, humbleness and love. 

To me, those are truly worth living for. :)

Godspeed to you all!

Life goes on, it gets so heavy...

On Friday, I was watching Good Morning America and they had a special live concert featuring Coldplay, one of my favorite bands. Yay!

As I listened to them play a couple songs, I was struck by one - Paradise. It tells us of a girl who thought she could do anything and be anyone, that the world was hers for the taking - except that she soon realizes that life doesn't often work that way where we get everything we want. Sometimes we have to accept the simple fact that 'life goes on, it gets so heavy...every tear a waterfall'. But, we can change how we feel and react to that, just by managing day to day, one step at a time. A life in flux is better than a static fantasy.

This gave way to another groundbreaking thought (for me, at least): I don't think people ever escape from our problems. We have good days and bad days, some better than others, but the best we can do is manage them and hope that tomorrow is a brighter day and another chance to be happy.

As I walked to work today, I was listening on my iPod to this song, and started to smile. It's so easy for us to get lost in the everyday shuffle of things, and we need to take a moment to simply think in the present, in the now, and appreciate that this very second is awesome. I smiled at others passing by, I sang some lyrics out loud without caring if I looked a fool, I gazed at the sky and thought wow it's so pretty, I breathed fresh wintry air and filled my lungs anew, my walk turned into a tiny dance, and I closed my eyes and thought, how lucky are we. Life is beautiful, in this moment, in this now, and I appreciate it and am so thankful that I'm living it. And that, my readers, is simply enough. :)

PaRaDiSe

" When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach so
She ran away in her sleep
and dreamed of
Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise, Para-para-paradise
Every time she closed her eyes

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
and the bullets catch in her teeth
Life goes on, it gets so heavy
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the night the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the night the stormy night away she'd fly

and dreams of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise

Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
She'd dream of
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh

lalalalalalalalalalala
And so lying underneath those stormy skies
She'd say, "oh, ohohohoh I know the sun must set to rise"

This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Para-para-paradise
This could be
Para-para-paradise
Oh oh oh oh oh oh-oh-oh-oh..."

The Act of Giving and the Unexpected Return on Investment

So on Friday, I started volunteering at the Boys & Girls Club down the street from where I live. And I realized something - I am SO much happier when I'm doing something that improves or impacts another's life. Who.Would.Have.Thought!

More of us need to volunteer and do things for others instead of ourselves - whether it be a time-commitment/regular thing or just an everyday average selfless act - because by doing so we can help one another live longer, healthier, happier lives with more social interaction.

It's so easy these days to live in our 'own worlds' and constantly focus on ourselves, and perhaps one or two others that really matter/we see every day. But if we stop and reach out to other people, whether it's co-workers or strangers or family or old friends or lost tourists, it's so powerful to see those effects on people and ultimately ourselves.

When I started volunteering that Friday afternoon, I was so excited to start making a difference. But once I met all the kids and there was about 100 of them running around like crazy nutcases with serious attitude problems, I began to doubt my choice. Then I met two pre-teen girls - Danae and Victoria. They were the epitome of 'best friends' - they lived in the same apartment building since they were young and had been going to the same school since kindergarten. Now they were 11 year olds, and they were so friendly to me and supportive of my being there as an older, non-familiar volunteer, that I started to think - wow, I thought I would be affecting positive change and here they are making me feel at home and welcome and secure and loved. Not to say that I think I didn't have some impact on them - I told them this was my first day and I would be there every Friday and perhaps host impromptu dance classes since that's what I like/am good at, and they were very excited since they loved to dance too - but I didn't think I would also be as affected as I was.

Funny how life works that way - you make plans and expect certain outcomes, and then life throws you a curve ball and you get something completely unexpected. I love that :)

Music and the Importance of Taking a Moment

So I know I'm trying to instill the practice of being 'relaxed' and 'disconnected from machines', but I have to admit that I was on Facebook like I shouldn't have been. Oopsie. At the same time, maybe it was for a reason because I noticed this. Take a moment to read - it sums up exactly what my previous post was about - taking the time to slow down and appreciate the finer (and more relaxed and pleasant!) things in life.

Enjoy! :)



"...A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?..."



Inspiring, isn't it?

Recent Thoughts

So recently I've been feeling a little solitary in my thoughts, and after a couple of soul-searching moments and talks with co-workers that are very adept at some valuable and inspiring insight, I want to relay a couple of points I'm pondering:

• Life is WAY too short as we've found out and been reminded of recently to get caught up in the tiny little  mundane details of everyday life. Whitney Houston passed away too young, as have many celebrities. As we keep seeing more and more these days, it really does seem that 'only the good die young' etc. Death is too much a part of regular life that we no longer seem phased by it and therefore don't realize how important each and every moment truly is. We have to cherish them, even if we have to force ourselves out of a reverie of negativity to do so. (I definitely need to heed my own advice, here). 
• Negativity tends to fade quick and positivity tends to last longer. - This thought is mind-blowing to me! A co-worker recently told me some thoughts she was having regarding life, work, play, travel, thoughts, outlook, self-esteem, the whole deal. Her thoughts were very opening to me: What we think is a big deal now will not be in the long run. What we do day-to-day is the bigger issue. So if we constantly think negative thoughts, then life is generally not so great. But if we have smaller moments of negativity, that's not so bad. Positivity glosses over those small negative moments we have from time to time, and that's the key.
• For some reason, I've been really cherishing my relationship with my boyfriend. But at the same token, I'm thinking of him in a very 'you might die any second and I want to make sure every single second that you know and are 150% sure that you know I love you more than anything in the world and can't put words to how much I care deeply for you'. Is that catastrophic thinking? Probably. But it made me realize that I do really love him and do really cherish the everyday moments we have, no matter how small or how insignificant. That makes me happy - thus: positivity lasts longer! Proof of point #2. :)
• Walking is a nice way to relax and reconfigure your thoughts. Seriously. I walk everyday to and from work, and I must say, it's a wonderful chance to compose myself and take stock of what's going on in my life and what I still would like to accomplish and/or change. Pretty standard/been said before, but I wanted to express my personal thoughts on that one.
• Spend as much time with OTHERS as you can! In one of my social communication classes in college, I discovered that we as a 'unique individual' are in fact beings with multiple truths and realities that are constantly changing and adapting to how we interact with others. We are who we are when we're interacting. That to me was mind-blowing - it completely blew my previous conceptions of a 'unique individual' out of the water. We are beings who are social and interact with others. Crazy, right? Wrong. That totally makes more sense to me than the notion of a 'unique self' ever did. I tend to think of human beings as just vessels that contain our floating thoughts and energies which we constantly exchange and share with other human beings - these make up our substance and are ever-fluctuating. That is actually quite a liberating and reassuring thought. We don't have to be 'set' or 'concrete' in our thoughts or 'personalities' - we can make adaptations and reconfigure our lives to play out the way we want them to at the time. No more of this 'set personality' crap. We are who we and everyone else chooses at whatever time to be!
• Try to relax as much as you can. Again, life is too short to be stressed out any more than a tiny bit. We're surrounded now by so much (mostly artificial) stimuli that we're bombarding ourselves with too much information and mundane distractions that we don't 'stop to smell the roses' anymore. We need to change that! I hate people who are constantly glued to their machines - we're becoming exactly those 'robotic humans' that the old movies predicted we would - let's avoid this! I want a world back how it used to be - relaxing and connected to nature and simplistic. As Henry David Thoreau (and many others for sure) used to say, 'Simplify, simplify, simplify!' 
• Nothing you wear is as important and as connected to your mood than your ATTITUDE. So adjust it when you're thinking negatively and convert that energy to positive thoughts and CONFIDENCE. Even if it's 'fake' at first, do it! Put that extra swag in your step and you'll start to notice a change in the way you see life. I've done it, and I'm the most stubborn person out there, and it definitely affects me for the better. :)

These are just some notions I'm pondering these days, so I wanted to share. Any thoughts or ideas or comments are always welcome!

A Simple Guide to Anti-Perfectionism: Where Have All the Children Gone? A Loss of Innocence

Hi all,

So in continuation of my micro-blog/mini-novella/life experience notes, here's my latest installment and string of thoughts. Enjoy!

Where Have All the Children Gone? A Loss of Innocence

When we were kids, we had everything going for us – nothing could stop that childhood motivation and energy and those impenetrable smiles. When I was little, I can remember getting up at 7 in the morning and going outside to play incessantly until my mother threatened not to feed me if I didn’t come inside for dinner ‘right this second!’ Days filled with cartoons, trampoline-jumping, games of tag and hide & seek, riding bikes, jungle-gyms, pools, and ice cream – life was good.

But life couldn’t be more further from the truth…which begs my question, where did all the innocence go? Where have all the children gone?

I can answer that. After years of learning more and growing into adults, we learn more than we care to – about ourselves, our community, our world. The good and the bad. Soon we discover that life isn’t a series of games and cake and cartoon Saturdays – it’s a string of incessant events where our heads spin in an effort to comprehend what’s going on and what’s changing and how to keep up with it all without losing our minds. In a word, chaos.

I can target the day I first lost that innocence and found out that the world wasn’t so nice and fun as I thought – the day I got my period. Yes, a little gross and disgusting and personal, but hey, every girl goes through it, and it’s for the greater good here, so whatever don’t judge me. It was 8^th grade and I was babysitting – I came home for lunch around noontime after about 5 hours of sitting these devil children when I found blood in my underwear for the first time that didn’t look normal. I was so not prepared for the moment when my life transformed from being a kid with no responsibilities or problems to a young woman who would soon learn that life was not so forgiving and pretty to everyone at every moment. A turning point, as they call it in the literary world. From then on, each day brought more devastation as I realized that I would have to keep moving through life regardless of what evils and travesties I would have to keep facing. An awful and very Armageddon-like thought, quite frankly.

High school was more of that, and then college taught me the worst of all evils – the art of growing into my own skin and truly learning who I was and in what direction my life was going: onward with no real assurance of what was in store next. Great – the perfectionist who was wedded to innocence and comfort and everything simple was suddenly smacked in the face with the fact that life was messy and complicated and sometimes downright wicked. Super. I was totally prepared for this! Not. At. All.

Now after thinking it over and having survived so far since that first realization, I had another one – I was doing just fine on my own. Wow, I thought, I can do this! Living day-to-day knowing that anything can happen and it might not be what I wanted or was expecting and that all will go on as it has always before was so awesome! This reminds me of a quote from Under the Tuscan Sun: “Aunt Mary is everywhere here, her calm presence assuring us that all things will go on as they have before…” – Beautifully said. And remarkably true. That and the common saying that ‘God never gives you more than you can handle.’ I believe those two statements to be very true. After going through some life experiences of my own and still not knowing exactly what’s in store for the rest of my life, I’ve come to find that I can handle things – one at a time, little by little, as much as I can, without panicking. At least most of the time.

And that’s all we can do. Keep calm and carry on…

Early Morning Hours

It's early morning, just after midnight, and this tends to be the time when I get my creative juices flowing, so here's another gift from sleeplessness:

Early Morning Hours

Nighttime falls and darkness begins

Like an infant with a blanket

It covers the earth, drawing us to sleep

Beckoning us to our beds

Nodding its confirmation

To another day's end.

The early morning hours begin

Letting our minds and bodies rest

From the previous day's toils.

Our trials, tribulations, joys and laughs

Close their chapters to begin anew.

The hours float on by

A string of dreams flies along

Flowing through the air

Rising and falling like ocean tides

Never settling, just moving

Constantly and freely

Like bubbles hovering in the sky

Twinkling in the night.

The hours appear blue, black and white

Colors of sky and ocean and nothingness.

White cascades over us

Angels watching from above

Sitting on top of puffs of clouds

Like whipped frosting and cream

Colors of goodness and innocence.

The morning begins to fade,

Darkness with it,

Dawn arrives in style

An entrance ever so bright

The sun makes its first appearance 

Carrying a cape of yellow

Dragging in its wake.

Awake, awake 

For another day begins.