I was restless during the night ... cardiac arrhythmias are a bitch .... yesterday had its comfortable and uncomfortable interactions and matters of wellness in my future generations has set off a series of waves that come through the rest of my existence periodically and with sadness. The waves are coming right now every hour or two and warm my eyes .... I don't have any inclination to rid myself of these waves nor do they cancel the similarly periodic appearances of playfulness and glee. It's like so many days on the beach when waves come to the Atlantic Ocean from both the NorthEast and the SouthEast. The waves of later life in the Fourth Quarter don't seem to be prone to the cancellation of competing waves in childhood and youth. Maybe that's what can sometimes be confused with Wisdom .... could be that it isn't related to great insight but to the capacity to juggle glee with sadness.
Anyway, two metaphors or are they similes came into my radar, yesterday. One was from a book on mindful living by Meng Tan, one of the early workers at Google. He focuses on mindfulness (both meditative and during activity), kindness and the hopes for World Peace -- the third being a long term aspirational goal. But talking about mindfulness, he compares it to riding a bike c. p31). When you learn how to ride, the central balacing act, he says, is learning that when your bike is falling left? turn right. And, indeed, that is the intuitive action to take. Alas, this is one of those times when intuition just doesn't cut it. If you follow Tan's method, almost immediately, you'll be scraping your skin off the pavement.
No. When learning how to bike, one needs to train the body to act counter-intuitively .... when falling left? turn slightly toward the left and the bike will right itself. This may well be among the many things people must learn when they're concentrating or focusing or meditating and an errant thought pops into your mind. When that occurs, one learns -- again, counterintuitively -- to note -- even to pay some attention -- to the interfering thought ... otherwise, as on a bike, all may be lost.
The second turn of a phrase came from an online discussion. Someone opined: I approach people like they were a coloring book. Duh! Do you bring your crayons, I thought to say ... No, again. I prefer to borrow from WR Bion who suggested that you enter a meeting with another "without memory or desire" ... and, I might add, without your own crayons that may speak of rigid expectation for the encounter or of the other. Perhaps, among the highest joys is watching someone else (a child? a grandchild? a partner) play with coloring in their own pictures ... in the early morning light .... in the bleached out afternoon Sun ... and even in the dusky richness of light that shows special coloration quite late in the day.
The rumor that the Old are Wise is questionable -- to my way of thinking ... That they may accept the counterintuitive and can often wait a bit as pictures fill out on their own may, nonetheless, appear to be so.
No comments:
Post a Comment