When I was a kid or a teenager I saw a program about the death of an old woman. I don’t think she was a celebrity or anything; just an old woman in Israel. Anyway, people were talking about her and one young guy said something about how the old lady stirred her tea: “she held the spoon at the very tip between her thumb and pointing finger and stirred it slowly, counter clockwise.” WOW! This had a profound effect on me… not only the notice of details, but it was completely different than how I stirred my tea at the time. I was so impressed by someone noticing how another stirred their tea and actually reporting it on TV. I can’t explain why this old memory is so vivid and why it had such an impact on me.
From that day, I stir my tea just like that old lady; I remember deciding back then to do that as an experiment to see if anyone would ever do the honor of mentioning that on TV when I am eulogized.
PS. I know I am sort of ruining the experiment now by telling about it, but 1) I don’t plan on it happening anytime soon and 2) I have not written in a while and this is the best I could come up with. And yes, while the story is real, it was meant as a “thought experiment” and by no means should be taken as me believing in any sort of afterlife or other Micky-mouse stories!
Saar,
Very interesting story. Now I come to understand where you got your ability and habit to observe details. It is funny that in the past I never bothered to notice the small things ( I guess you are often distracted by my keyboard typing or slurping of tea :) ), but after you mentioned those to me, I also couldn’t help paying attention to some details. The story is interesting, and infectious … haha