The Self Contained Traveler

Business travel can be lonely at times. Not that much more lonely than living alone, but when I’m home I am home, and when I am about in the neighborhood, I having a pretty good chance of running into someone I know, up to and including someone I went to grade school with. When I am on the road and out and about, I am stranger among friends – in reality, a stranger among strangers, but somehow it seems like everyone else knows each other ;-) So there is this notion of the ‘self-contained traveler’, where one’s inner dialogue substitutes for inter-dialogue,  one’s phone acts as a tether to the familiar, and, aside from a friendly waiter or waitress, there is no recourse for discourse. It makes me sad to think that there are some people that live this way – people who have lost everyone, or, perhaps, people who everyone has lost. When you think about how our very survival depended on being in a group, it is not too much of a leap to see how being cast out leads to a type of psychological death, even if not a physical death. So the next time you are out and about and you see someone eating alone, ask him to sit with you, there is a very good chance that he might be able to expense your meal ;-) 

The Second Mind

Have you ever made decision based on your gut, and your mind never really signed on, but your mind was wrong? I call this 'the second mind', and I don't mean the often-overlooked network of neurons lining our guts ;-) To me, this the observant, contemplating mind that underlies - perhaps, overlies - the frenetic, anxious mind, which simply cannot attain enough distance from the noise to be sound. The notion of 'the observer' and 'the observed' is already a well known concept in Eastern Philosophy, so this is not an original idea, but, perhaps, an original observation that these 'gut-over-mind' decisions may very well be the only encounter we have with our 'observer selves' - at the very least, those of us who are trapped in the ever-present 'thick of thin things'. Thus, it might be a good idea to muse over these kinds of decisions a bit, and figure out how to connect with this 'second mind' more often. I sure as fuck haven't been able to. 

The Sadness of Happiness

If you are like me, any moment of deep happiness is followed by a moment of deep sadness. Why is that? I think it has to do with the Second Noble Truth of Zen Buddhism: "The origin of suffering is attachment", which tells us that the root of all suffering is attachment to the desire to have (craving) and the desire not to have (aversion), accentuated by the essential fact that we can never satisfy *all* of our desires. According to Buddha, this applies to those that 'have not' and those that 'have but continually want more', so it is not a phenomenon that can be resolved through the attainment of the object of one's desire. The only way to avoid this suffering of attachment is to rise above it. Denying it is just the flip side of 'craving' - i.e. 'aversion' - which is just a different form of desire. I am nowhere near living an attachment free life, but I do have a specific focus on simplicity, and I try to remain in a constant state of satisfaction, which does afford a bit of comfort at the idea that life is short and can be cut short at any time - this is especially useful for frequent air travel ;-) But a moment of deep happiness disrupts this mode of living. All of a sudden, there is attachment and craving, satisfaction is compromised by the desire for more, and now it is no longer acceptable for the plane to go down, so to speak. All of a sudden, there is a recognition that nothing in life lasts forever, even in the face of our desire for permanence. That, in my opinion, is the root for those moments of deep sadness that closely follow even a second of deep happiness. For me, anyway. 

Hinge

If you've ever banged your head really hard, even if just short of a concussion, you may recall experiencing an accompanying taste. Well, today I bought a new bag of rice crackers and the very first one had that very same taste. I was immediately reminded of the time I ran into a tree at night at summer camp and almost got knocked out, which immediately reminded me of the scene in the movie Ratatouille, where the food critic enters a rat infested restaurant for an otherwise ominous meal, but the very first bite of ratatouille transports him back to his childhood and his mother's loving presence, a presence he had obviously not found since. This got me thinking. Perhaps everything we've experienced in life is hinged together - a smell that leads to the memory of a place, that leads to the memory of a face, that leads to the memory of a taste, that culminates in a song. A veritable hodgepodge of hooks. This got me thinking. Perhaps all of our collective experiences are hinged together in a similar way, and we need only be liberated from our individuality to experience it. Perhaps, only when gravity no longer holds away over our souls and we are swirled off of this rock for good. It is a perfectly reasonable conclusion for someone who's tripping on rice crackers.

[My] Rules of Thumb

Thought I would share a few rules of thumb that I am living by these days, in case any of them appeal to you. 

I am trying to address a slight food addiction and a more-than-slight predilection for letting the day get away from me and nose diving into uber-reactionary mode, but I think that these may be transferable.

(1) The Long Fast

I am something of a binary person, so, for me, any diet that calls for restraint simply does not work. Ergo, I have adopted what I call 'the long fast'. I eat breakfast at 8am, and then I do not eat anything during the day - i.e. work from 8am to 8pm, hit the gym from 8pm to 10pm, eat dinner around 10pm. 

One would think that this would be a challenge, but, in reality, once I get over the hunger-hump (no double entendre intended), I am good to go, and my workouts have been _way_ better (I think this has to do with my body having all available resources at its disposal, versus having anything locked up in digestion). 

(2) The 15 Minute Interval

Throughout the day, every 15 minutes, I take 3 sips of water. This is a poor [less capable] man's version of the _only_ technique that Buddha used to achieve enlightenment (i.e. by being aware of every breath). 

I think I would go insane if I had to be aware of every breath, and I am pretty sure if Buddha had to code in three different languages, work a laptop / tablet / smart phone, drive a car, etc, while being aware of every breath, he might have gone insane as well ;-) At the very least, I have to 'wake up' every 15 minutes, and this is far superior to the 'black out' periods that I have experienced in the past. 

Polls and Poles

The tendency to attribute all that is bad to a single leader and all that us good to the collective or even external happenstance, obfuscates the deeper issues in the inner-workings of an organization. This appears to be the case in the current, ideologically polarized US government, and while news networks on either pole stoke the angry flames of people on the same side of this dichotomy, we the people are not being served. Anyone who is fixated on destroying the enemy within by voting with an ideological heart rather than a pragmatic mind is simply locking in more deadlock. If we are going to get anywhere, it will be via the middle of the road, and this means compromise. 

Distraction

Distraction. It's dangerous. In the near term and the long term. It can cause you to lose track of time, valuables and risks. It can sentence you to a lifetime of reactionary and misguided activity. But where does it come from? Why does it happen? Simple. A lack of presence. I see less and less presence in the world today. More and more people walking around in the 'machine shop' of life, indiscriminately putting their hands one cutting, flattening or grinding machine or another. Perhaps we feel like we are buffered from life to a sufficient degree to shed ourselves of the 'super focus' our ancestors relied on to survive? I don't think so.

The World Within

Today I pulled out 300-400 staples from my 2nd story floors with a pair of needle nose pliers, and I realized that if you make your world sufficiently small, even the most mundane task can be an adventure.

Irrational People

Dealing with an irrational person can be incredibly interesting. They cannot distinguish their inflated perceptions from the narrow facts, and when you try to guide them towards that, even when it is for their benefit, they may very well attack you for it, because the nightmare in their mind is still 'home'. It is good to just steer clear of these kinds if people, but also good to wonder if others are steering clear of you. 

Just One

I recently had an exchange with a friend that reminded me of a similar conversation I had with someone long ago, wherein we talked about how important it is for everyone to have, at least, someone who believes in them and is on their side. That single tether, that stand-alone validation can go a long way towards stemming the erosion of self-doubt and the fatal blow of disbelief in one's own character. The fact that we even see ourselves as having 'character' means that we need to be in each other's stories, and, very often, need to be written as the protagonist in our own story, which can only happen relative to the other 'characters' in our story. Think about that before you withdraw from the pages of someone else's life.