Our presence as a gift

Yesterday's blog post made me ruminate on how a person's presence and full attention is such a gift.

Which made me wonder why we are so determined to automate 'being there'?

We schedule social media posts so we can "show up" at a certain time without actually showing up. We pre-record audio and video but schedule them to publish later. We schedule things to happen at certain times, all in an effort to show others that we're somewhere without actually being there.

Why?

I understand the marketing logic. I understand playing the algorithm game and batching work. But I can't help but wonder if we've lost the main goal somewhere along the way.

Presence implies being present. If I'm not present at school, having someone put their hand up for me is a poor substitute. I'm still not there. And if my teacher wants me present, seeing someone else in my place or the fact that I was at school last week is a poor substitute. The point is that I'm not present when it counts.

And so I'm starting to wonder if automated presence can truly be counted as presence. Especially since actual presence, which comes from the word present, is a gift.

Am I giving a true gift if or when I automate my presence? Is the person on the receiving end happy with that presence?

I don't quite know the answer to that just yet. But I do know that in a world that seems to increasingly reward automation, genuine presence is becoming rarer and more valuable.

So maybe the greatest gift I can offer the people around me isn't an instant reply, a quick but automated post, or a me that's constantly showing up while never actually being present.

Maybe it's simply me. The me who has a life to live that's apart from the online world. The me who requires a bit of time to think about a response before I respond. The me who needs space to think about the words before posting an article.

But when I do show up, it'll be the real me, fully present.