“I hadn’t gotten old enough yet to realize that living send a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead” (Jeffrey Eudenides Middlesex Picador).
I have been tearing through novels. Three in one week so far. I’ve read Middlesex, The Hunger Games, and Breakfast with Buddha. All three very good and in different ways. The first one I’ve had on the self for a while. I picked it up and went cover to cover in two days. The middle one, required reading for incoming honors freshmen students (I teach) was an easy read and so much more simplistic than the first, the last one I bought on a whim when I ducked in a bookstore to dodge a rainshower. I really like that one because I like getting Buddhist philosophy woven into a narrative. Yesterday was Printer’s Row Book Fest. I went into the city on a whim and enjoyed seeing all of the activity associated with the printed word. I thought to myself that this will probably all change as the world moves to more digital and electronic forms of Literature. I can’t get a clear handle on how it will change; but one thing in life that is always certain is change.
So why all the reading, you ask. I finally have the time to read. I attacked the end of the school year with a promise to myself that I would find some balance in the days that followed the final bell. It has been wonderful. I’m reading, writing, enjoying nature, playing/teaching tennis, and visiting my family and friends. Today I’ll fill the role of “super aunt” and play with my niece. My one and only cousin, who will be getting married in a month, is coming to visit. I’m very excited to see him since it has been a long time. This has me thinking about Karma.
I have been pondering the balance I need to clear in this life. Here is what I’ve come up with: 1. Anger 2. Gluttony and 3. Sloth. I still harbor anger in my heart. I want to settle the waves of that tumultuous ocean and know the feeling of peace. I need to sever my self-indulgent tendancies. And lastly, I need to see my ambition through on books, projects, photo albums, and financial organization that I’ve been to “busy” to take care of. On a higher level, I need to attend to my spirituality. That seems easy to type. Ironic that it is so easily ignorred by many people in the American culture, for the most part. I want to take advantage of the quiet time this summer to meditate. Of course, it will be the finding a calm, settled, strong spiritual grounding in the face of craziness that will be actual testimony to this sought after development.
I did a few Reiki treatments last summer and would like to try that again. I’d like to take a drive to a meditation retreat somewhere close-by. I’d like to finish one of my three unfinished novels. I’m aiming for the one set in Indonesia – it is very interesting, funny, and sweet. I’d like to prepare for the creative writing course that I’ll be starting at the end of August. I’d like to attend some more creative writing workshops. There goes the schedule, getting all scheduled. And then there is the sugery. The bariatric surgery….gastric bypass. Yowzah!
I’m more than the schedule. I’m energy….karmic energy if I slip my Buddhist glasses on. If the goal is enlightenment, then what has been my path of late? Not so good. I’m a TV zombie, a shop-a-holic, disconnected, over-worked, maniac. Now that the maniac is on vacation, I’m a little unsettled. I’ve needed to pay bills for four days. They are still sitting here by the computer staring at me and me at them…I wish there was a life with out bills. Maybe I could move to a village in the mountains and just “live offa the land.” Where can anyone do that anymore? Not in the states. What of the college education? What of my credit card debt? What of the refills on my prescriptions? What of the movie theaters? What of my Mac-n-Cheese….well that one will be gone in about three weeks.
Sometimes I feel like I have multiple personality disorder. Lord knows I have enough disorders already, right? But there are these different people that want to be the “bus driver” of my personality. Some days it is a spoiled little kid who didn’t get what it wanted. Somedays it is all about money and stuff….the materialistic consumer. Lately it has been “the worldly, well-read academic seeking spiritual fulfillment.” I like this driver, only this one only hops in the seat every so often. Typically, the other drivers duke it and the guru chills out in the back seat as a patient passenger. I think it would be interesting to “get real” with my bus drivers and be able to bench some permanently. If it were that easy, there would be a lot of out of work psychologists.
So, to tie into Eugenides’ quote. I’ve been feeling my thirties. I’m not old, but some days it feels like my mind is. And that isn’t a bad thing as this culture implies. I’ve thought a lot about my roots…the P’s, GP’s, aunt lately. “What is the point of all of this?” I ask myself. I’ve been spared from certain death on more than a couple of times. Why? Shouldn’t I be doing something more significant than being an in-debt, psychologically hung-up, single, regretful, sometimes out-of-control, self-indulgant, lazy, and spiritually ungrounded thirty-something? Wow, that sounds harsh. On the flip side, my students, who claimed I was the best teacher they ever had, told me things along those lines that makes me think that I was doing something meaningful with my long days and late nights of schoolwork. On nights where I could get enough sleep to dream, I dreamed about school too. I love teaching. I don’t necessarily love all the paper pushing, but I love working with the kids. It is my hope that I’ve brought them some level of goodness and growth, while also delivering the curriculum that my district is paying me to teach. This is noble. Thus, it is good.
I know this to be good, just like I know spending time playing with my niece and teaching her words is good.
There is goodness and God, divinity in anything that you experience. One just has to be open to the goodness by freeing one’s self from negativity. It is frightening to me to consider how easily we are consumed by factors that detract from the goodness. It takes turning off the TV, pausing, breathing, and holding a thought or intention long enough to experience a brief moment of clarity. That is really easy to type – - – ah, the pile of bills is laughing at me know. I must tame it, I must go, and I must occupy myself with the numbers that comprise the other “bus driver” of my personality…the frustrated hack accountant.
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~ by the10sdoc on June 14, 2010.
Posted in nostalgic, philosophy, soul-searching
Tags: buddhism, commentary, cultural commentary, life, materialism, nostalgia, psychological, psychology, society, thoughts, writing
Karmic sketches
“I hadn’t gotten old enough yet to realize that living send a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead” (Jeffrey Eudenides Middlesex Picador).
I have been tearing through novels. Three in one week so far. I’ve read Middlesex, The Hunger Games, and Breakfast with Buddha. All three very good and in different ways. The first one I’ve had on the self for a while. I picked it up and went cover to cover in two days. The middle one, required reading for incoming honors freshmen students (I teach) was an easy read and so much more simplistic than the first, the last one I bought on a whim when I ducked in a bookstore to dodge a rainshower. I really like that one because I like getting Buddhist philosophy woven into a narrative. Yesterday was Printer’s Row Book Fest. I went into the city on a whim and enjoyed seeing all of the activity associated with the printed word. I thought to myself that this will probably all change as the world moves to more digital and electronic forms of Literature. I can’t get a clear handle on how it will change; but one thing in life that is always certain is change.
So why all the reading, you ask. I finally have the time to read. I attacked the end of the school year with a promise to myself that I would find some balance in the days that followed the final bell. It has been wonderful. I’m reading, writing, enjoying nature, playing/teaching tennis, and visiting my family and friends. Today I’ll fill the role of “super aunt” and play with my niece. My one and only cousin, who will be getting married in a month, is coming to visit. I’m very excited to see him since it has been a long time. This has me thinking about Karma.
I have been pondering the balance I need to clear in this life. Here is what I’ve come up with: 1. Anger 2. Gluttony and 3. Sloth. I still harbor anger in my heart. I want to settle the waves of that tumultuous ocean and know the feeling of peace. I need to sever my self-indulgent tendancies. And lastly, I need to see my ambition through on books, projects, photo albums, and financial organization that I’ve been to “busy” to take care of. On a higher level, I need to attend to my spirituality. That seems easy to type. Ironic that it is so easily ignorred by many people in the American culture, for the most part. I want to take advantage of the quiet time this summer to meditate. Of course, it will be the finding a calm, settled, strong spiritual grounding in the face of craziness that will be actual testimony to this sought after development.
I did a few Reiki treatments last summer and would like to try that again. I’d like to take a drive to a meditation retreat somewhere close-by. I’d like to finish one of my three unfinished novels. I’m aiming for the one set in Indonesia – it is very interesting, funny, and sweet. I’d like to prepare for the creative writing course that I’ll be starting at the end of August. I’d like to attend some more creative writing workshops. There goes the schedule, getting all scheduled. And then there is the sugery. The bariatric surgery….gastric bypass. Yowzah!
I’m more than the schedule. I’m energy….karmic energy if I slip my Buddhist glasses on. If the goal is enlightenment, then what has been my path of late? Not so good. I’m a TV zombie, a shop-a-holic, disconnected, over-worked, maniac. Now that the maniac is on vacation, I’m a little unsettled. I’ve needed to pay bills for four days. They are still sitting here by the computer staring at me and me at them…I wish there was a life with out bills. Maybe I could move to a village in the mountains and just “live offa the land.” Where can anyone do that anymore? Not in the states. What of the college education? What of my credit card debt? What of the refills on my prescriptions? What of the movie theaters? What of my Mac-n-Cheese….well that one will be gone in about three weeks.
Sometimes I feel like I have multiple personality disorder. Lord knows I have enough disorders already, right? But there are these different people that want to be the “bus driver” of my personality. Some days it is a spoiled little kid who didn’t get what it wanted. Somedays it is all about money and stuff….the materialistic consumer. Lately it has been “the worldly, well-read academic seeking spiritual fulfillment.” I like this driver, only this one only hops in the seat every so often. Typically, the other drivers duke it and the guru chills out in the back seat as a patient passenger. I think it would be interesting to “get real” with my bus drivers and be able to bench some permanently. If it were that easy, there would be a lot of out of work psychologists.
So, to tie into Eugenides’ quote. I’ve been feeling my thirties. I’m not old, but some days it feels like my mind is. And that isn’t a bad thing as this culture implies. I’ve thought a lot about my roots…the P’s, GP’s, aunt lately. “What is the point of all of this?” I ask myself. I’ve been spared from certain death on more than a couple of times. Why? Shouldn’t I be doing something more significant than being an in-debt, psychologically hung-up, single, regretful, sometimes out-of-control, self-indulgant, lazy, and spiritually ungrounded thirty-something? Wow, that sounds harsh. On the flip side, my students, who claimed I was the best teacher they ever had, told me things along those lines that makes me think that I was doing something meaningful with my long days and late nights of schoolwork. On nights where I could get enough sleep to dream, I dreamed about school too. I love teaching. I don’t necessarily love all the paper pushing, but I love working with the kids. It is my hope that I’ve brought them some level of goodness and growth, while also delivering the curriculum that my district is paying me to teach. This is noble. Thus, it is good.
I know this to be good, just like I know spending time playing with my niece and teaching her words is good.
There is goodness and God, divinity in anything that you experience. One just has to be open to the goodness by freeing one’s self from negativity. It is frightening to me to consider how easily we are consumed by factors that detract from the goodness. It takes turning off the TV, pausing, breathing, and holding a thought or intention long enough to experience a brief moment of clarity. That is really easy to type – - – ah, the pile of bills is laughing at me know. I must tame it, I must go, and I must occupy myself with the numbers that comprise the other “bus driver” of my personality…the frustrated hack accountant.
Like this:
~ by the10sdoc on June 14, 2010.
Posted in nostalgic, philosophy, soul-searching
Tags: buddhism, commentary, cultural commentary, life, materialism, nostalgia, psychological, psychology, society, thoughts, writing