In times of great hardship and struggle, we often find ourselves in that familiar place where we are forced to look within for answers and wisdom all the while swimming in emotions and thoughts we can find very uncomfortable and sometimes foreign.

I have never been afraid of my inner terrain (it's great material for morbidly deep poetry and insight), however, it can be a bit confusing and exhaustive to juggle the inner and outer worlds simultaneously.

Inside world looks like some sort of epic drama with violin sonatas included! Mine, however, probably more resembles a dramedy with my outside view of the world looking like some sort of over-rated reality show with irritating, distracting commercial breaks every 5 minutes.

In-between the clashing of these two worlds, torches of love and support come held by loved ones and friends to help guide us through this forest of uncertainty and uncomfortable-ness and we begin to recognize how precious each moment is. How precious silence is. How precious a touch..a word..eye contact is.

You realize that you are now living 'in the moment' - outside of time. You are aware that you are fully present in something outside of your inner or outer terrain, outside of your own body and mind.

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day....~Johnny Nash

The preceding mind-dumping of deep thoughts is an example of digression.

To be honest, prior to this post, I think my understanding of digression was slightly confused with 'distraction'.

So, what is the difference between digression and distraction?

Digression:
It can be used in various ways to give speech or writing an added bit of background, texture or umph to draw the reader in. You might even stretch the use of digression as a means of expressing the imagination and creativity by way of developing a sense for different possibilities in a topic or finding its juxtapositions, oddities in relation to different elements - its a paint brush and your playing with ideas!

So is a digression necessary? No. But.......

“Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

You can also use digression to add research like science, history, art, or medical knowledge

A couple examples:

• How much dirt is there in a hole 3 feet deep, 6 feet long, and 4 feet wide? (That is when Dirt realised his namesake was quite ironic, he just loved digging holes though, odd for a 600 pound man.) Source

• The Spunkee Monkee had a great day building up life lessons and experiences. (Kids and parents set up FAMILY ACCOUNTS on Steemit, then kids begin earning points to earn online treasure, while simultaneously gaining LIFETIME treasure!) Source

BAHAHA! I'm distracted - doesn't take much!

Where was I? Oh yeah.....DIGRESSION!

I'll just leave you with the etymology of the word 'Digression':

The term "digression" comes from the Latin word digressio: "a going away, departing," noun of action from past participle stem of digredi "to deviate", from dis- "apart, aside" + gradi "to step, go". Source

Distraction:

Who's ready for the holidays?!

- Feel free to digress to your heart's content in the comments below - I always enjoy reading your thoughts and ideas.

- Distractions are welcome, too! ;)

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Props:

1st photo: Modified Source

2nd photo: by youhavewings

3rd Gif: Source