This week I went to a concert, and I paused for a moment… to absorb the crowd and watch an entire venue sing the same words at the same time.

There’s a thing that happens when a group of people are doing one thing together, and it stops being a bunch of separate people and becomes something singular. A body with one voice.

I have always felt a pull toward live music for this reason: the beauty, the collective harmony, the oneness of a large group.

It turns out there’s a name for this feeling... A sociologist named Émile Durkheim called it collective effervescence, that electric feeling of being swept up in something with other people, where the boundary between you and everyone else goes soft for a minute. It’s why we go to concerts and stadiums and weddings.

Maybe we’re drawn to those moments because that feeling is so rare.

The thing I noticed afterward was that I didn’t have to try to be present for it. I couldn’t have been anywhere else if I wanted to. My mind wasn’t drifting to the grocery list or the unanswered email or what time my meetings were tomorrow, because the music was loud, the bodies were close together, and the moment was so big it took up all the space.

There was no room left for me to be anywhere else.

I’ve been thinking about that all week, because that’s the dream, isn’t it?

To be that fully present.

Not managing, not bracing, not doom-scrolling, not half-living.

Just in it.

Alive.

But we can’t go to a concert every day. And honestly, that’s not really where life happens.

Life happens in the car on the way to the cottage, where we get to catch up on each other’s week.

It happens at the counter while dinner’s going and someone’s telling me about their day… and I’m only half-listening because I’m also doing four other things.

Life is lived in the ordinary, unremarkable, easy-to-miss moments that make up almost all of it.

The concert demands your presence.

It grabs it from you.

You don’t have to choose.

The smaller moments don’t do that. They don’t grab anything.

They just pass by, without warning, whether you showed up for them or not.

A kid telling you something that mattered to them.

The light coming in a certain way while the tea is steeping.

Your husband’s hand on your back as he walks past.

None of it announces itself.

None of it climbs up on a stage and makes you watch.

Which means the presence has to come from you.

There’s no crowd to dissolve into, no sound to carry you.

Just the choice... over and over, in moments that don’t seem to deserve that much attention, to actually be there for them.

These moments can make us realize how many moments we weren’t really there for… but they can also help us appreciate the ones still coming.

Because the concert was extraordinary. But I’m not going to live most of my life in harmony with a crowd.

I’m going to live it in the ordinary, in the moments that don’t grab me and force me to pay attention.

So I have to try to pay more attention.

I have to choose them on purpose.

Again and again.

That’s the whole thing, I think, about life.

It doesn’t need to be optimized.

It doesn’t have to be boring or even extraordinary.

Just… chosen.

Lived.