It took me almost one thousand daily blog posts to realize what I had actually been writing about.

For a long time, I thought I was simply documenting my life in Japan.

Where I went.

What I saw.

What happened during the day.

Writing those things down was the easy part.

The more interesting part always came afterwards.

I would ask myself:

Why did this stay with me?

What did I notice?

Did this experience change the way I see something?

That was when the writing became interesting.

Looking back, I think that’s where the art of paying attention began.

Not during the experience itself.

But afterwards.

Sometimes I think writing has become a little like flying my FPV drone.

Normally I experience the world through my own eyes.

I see everything around me.

But I can’t see myself.

I don’t notice how I move through the world.

How I respond to situations.

How my thinking quietly changes.

When I fly my FPV drone around myself, something strange happens.

For a brief moment I can watch myself from the outside.

I see someone standing there wearing goggles, holding a remote controller, completely absorbed in flying.

It gives me a perspective I could never have from inside my own body.

Writing has started doing the same thing.

The words allow me to step outside the experience.

Somewhere between the first sentence and the last, I stop describing what happened.

Instead, I begin observing myself moving through what happened.

That is usually where the real story reveals itself.

Perhaps that is what paying attention has become for me.

Not paying closer attention to the world.

But paying closer attention to myself moving through it.

It took me nearly one thousand blog posts before I finally noticed.