Rob’s Blog

I have to say that I don’t like to describe what I am going through as a mid-life crisis, however it might be spelled.  I went to the DFL convention in Rochester this past weekend.  I had a blast, a really, really good time, but I noticed that while I could keep up with the younger folks, I am much fatigued this week.  I think I have been working too hard, at least too long, and the weekend was pretty exciting, so, there you go.  Still, I feel old and worn out this week, kind of like the exciting part of my life is well and truly over, and that all I have to look forward to is declining health, (both mental and physical) and a series of days without much to distinguish them the one from the other, until I die.  Cheery thought! 

I do look forward to watching my children grow up, and to learning new things, such as they might be, so maybe it isn’t as bleak as I think it is. 

I think I’m just tired, and that I’ll be fine after a few days.

Lousy youngsters!

I was listening to The Way of Zen  again today, and I was thinking about the same thing I touched on in this post.  Namely that there are no things in and of themselves, but instead only experiences.  (At the same time I was thinking that I should have some direction, and write down a long term set of goals so I could start working on getting to wherever it is I want to go, but one thing at a time.)

It seems to me that I got more out of it this time, and that it really clicked with me that it doesn’t matter what is in an objective sense, and it doesn’t matter if there even is an objective is.  A person relates to the universe that she perceives.  What that universe is like in some objective sense is not important.  In some ways it is unfair, if you ask me, because unlike animals, as far as we know, we can sense that there is some kind of greater organization around us.  We can describe it using science and math, and discuss it’s meaning with religion and philosophy, but we don’t really know what it is.  My analogy is of an alien watching a baseball game from 5000 feet in the sky.  He can, if he is observant, get an understanding of the rules of the game.  He could, after some time watching, even make predictions about what was likely to happen.  He couldn’t tell you why the pitcher threw the ball, or explain the infield fly rule. 

Such are we in our universe.  We just don’t know enough of the rules.  All we know is what we can experience, and even that is tainted by our memories. 

As far as my life goes,  I tried intending, and, really, it works on one level, but not for everything. Elaborating: Intending is a good, even a great, way to get your mind focused on what you want.  The universal mind or essence or whatever does listen.  But what intending cant do, contra The Secret, is actually get you what you want; bicycles don’t fall from the sky. 

I think a focused intention, phrased in a way that makes sense for you and that matches the way you think is the best way to get what you want.  But you still have to pick up the glass and drink.  Intention is a way to get you to the place where the glass is, and to recognize it as a glass of water. From there, the actual drinking is trivial.

So, intention coupled with action at various steps is the way to get what you want.  To succeed at this you need to practice intending, keep an eye out for signs, and act when the signs or situation demands.  The last bit might be tough, but more on that tomorrow.

As if it made a difference.  I don’t mean to be so tongue in cheek about it.  It is a new day, which means that something good will happen to me today. Why?  Because something good happens to me every day, even if I don’t recognize it at first.  I think of it like this;  My kids don’t have expectations, they don’t wake up and groan and ask me to hit the snooze button, and they don’t start their day complaining about having to go to school or day care.  They haven’t learned to expect anything.  That is my breakthrough for last week; if you go into a situation expecting it to be a certain way, or for certain things to happen, then you will be easily frustrated or disappointed.  If you have no expectations and just go with whatever is happening, then the day is easier, because there is less internal resistance. 

So, I’m not saying live like a five-year-old, but I am saying try every day to approach a familiar situation by removing expectations, and see what happens.

I was reading Tolle’s The Power of Now, or, accurately, listening to it on my ipod when I was supposed to be working. (Side note: Remind me to tell you what it is I do someday.) I have to say that good old Eckhart has a really annoying voice, and the question and answer format was, to say the least, odd. There was also a background noise that sounded like a washing machine was going while the author was reading. Perhaps he was using his time wisely, and multitasking his way to enlightenment. I couldn’t say, of course.

All of that aside, there was one thing that I thought was useful out of the book, and that was the idea that stress comes from resistance to “the Now.” New-agey fluffy language aside, I got that he meant that if you fully accept the situation that has you stressed, and let go of whatever else you want to be happening, you will be much less stressed.

It’s Sunday, however, and I have been less that successful at the whole surrendering to the now stuff. I think that, like this blog, I have to regard it as a work in progress. Very useful trick, though, and I am gonna use it when I think about it. Thinking about it, is in large part, the point; when you feel stress, you should think about it, rather than feel it.

So, there you are.

I don’t really have anything interesting to say. I think it was on this bog not long ago that I referred to posting as “Writing on the men’s room wall in a women’s college.” Which, incidentally, is not something I’ve done. What I meant, of course, is that there is no way that someone would stumble upon this blog, and, if they did, it’s not like they’d stay and have a chat in the comments.

Still, I have an update of sorts vis-a-vis the LoA. It seems like I have had some success at attracting things. One of the things I’ve attracted was being happy with what I have.

It’s a work in progress, what with all the Zen that’s flying ’round this place and the holidays coming up fast, but I think it’s cool that things are moving along.

So, I have been listening to Alan Watt’s The Way of Zen read by some British guy who sounds like a newsreel. What I have learned so far is that Westerners, myself included, of course, think differently than Easterners about the nature of reality. This is because symbolic languages in general, and Chinese in particular, use the same words to denote both a thing and an action.

Now, I of course have no idea what that means in a semantic sense, but what I get from it is a clarification. Namely, that there are no things as such, but only states of being. The thermos is at this moment, but it is an event, rather than a thing.

OK, I need some time to sort that out. The idea makes sense to me. We are pretty good, in Western thought, at describing things, but not very good at explaining things. We are at the mercy of our observations.

The trick, as always when trying something that is supposed to change your life, is to stick with it. Steve Pavlina has a 30 day experiment thing that he does. Basically, he says that if you want to do a new thing, commit to doing it for 30 days. If at the end of 30 days you don’t want to do it (or not do it, I suppose) you can stop. Read about it here. The beauty of this is that it tricks your monkey brain, the one that says “This is too hard,” by making your logical brain say “You can do anything for 30 days. If it sucks, quit after that.” I like it, but I haven’t yet decided on a project for my 30 day experiment. Steve has some ideas in his article, so feel free to try ‘em out. If you’ve already done one, let me know what it was and how it worked in comments.