Fri 26 May 2006
Sometimes people confuse a prolonged, intense, profound, and exhaustive contemplative state with laziness. Not me. I recognize and practice the art of active and purposeful inertia. While many dedicate their free time to mental stagnation and escapism through movement, I sit quietly . . . in thought. For example, I am capable of spending an entire Saturday from 8:00 in the morning until midnight, sitting quietly. This is not laziness. It is activity. My mind begins working and the rest of the body shuts down. By the evening, I am exhausted and go to bed for a good night’s rest so that I may sit intensely the following day.
You see, while some people are hyper-active, I am hyper-pensive. While some spend the day cleaning, mowing the lawn, playing golf (that I-hate-my-family sport and therefore avoid them first thing in the morning on my day off), I am concentrating. Some avoid the world through activity, I confront it through thought. Yeah, I may not do the dishes in an entire week. But, I have spent hours thinking about those dishes, and I have witnessed that washing them today or tomorrow or the next day, really makes no difference. It is an activity that does not add real value to the world around me. This is not laziness. It is a hightened state of awareness. It’s not leaving things in a mess, it’s understanding the irrelevantness of that mess. So, please do not nag me. Do not disturb me. I am much too busy for that right now.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I’ve seen this spectacle of Eric’s. I’ve seen the grandiose walls of piled up Washington post’s and empty bottles of kalua. I’ve slept among towers of dishes on a couch with so much lint, you’d think you were floating over the softest down comforter. Nothing in the refrigerator as if fasting to teach control of fleshly desires, penance for sins, and solidarity with the poor. I’ve see all of this, and it works, Although his body goes limp and his eyes stare in the same direction for hours he managed to dictate my defense for a hearing in the school council and I managed to walk out an innocent man. (true story).
The downside of this “shutting down” of the body, is that Eric has managed to urinate on himself while in his sleep after a few drinks AND vomit all over the interior of my car. (another true story)
Still, it’s all worth the cleaning after.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
[…] I often think of Jorge Luis Borges’ Yogacara idealism in the “Circular Ruins” where the main character is much happier and more productive while dreaming than while wake. How should this character have defined himself? Jose Ortega y Gasset wrote, “I am myself and my circumstances”. I would say that I am myself and my circumstances, and my circumstances include all of my actions. But, my actions include everything I do and do not do, and every point of cognition in my mind. When I may seem at rest, I just may be engrossed in some intense contemplation. […]