Sunday, January 06, 2008

Exactly so.

From Blogblah:

...if finding simple pleasure in having the wind and the sun in my face, the joie de vivre of whipping in and out of traffic, the feeling of being released from a freezing corner of hades, well, if that’s wrong, as the song goes, I don’t want to be right. At least I was in the moment, dude.


Exactly so (except maybe for the whipping in and out of traffic part, during which time I suspect you were rather insensitive to the driving habits of several honest, decent minivan owners).

I think this is a pretty good example of the 'when I'm hungry, I eat, when I'm tired, I sleep' principle. The alternative would be to be out driving and not even notice the sunshine because you're thinking (if you're me, anyway):
"Why did that woman come up and talk to me last night? Is she interested in me? Or was she just trying to make that guy she was with jealous? Or were they really together? I didn't see them come in together. Maybe they didn't come in together – maybe he was just hanging around her. Okay, that's magical thinking – obviously he was with her. Why do I even care? I may never even run into her again. Maybe she was just wanting to yank my chain a little to see what I'd do. Yeah, that's probably it – just like xxxxxxxx did – shit, was that really twelve years ago? Maybe I need to move on from that. But she really was psycho. Or maybe she wasn't. Maybe if I'd just been a little more aggressive... but she's married now, so it doesn't matter. But she was pretty serious at the time about the Fahrquahr Humate heir, and she dumped him... no, that's more magical thinking. I wonder how her marriage is doing. Jesus Christ, pal! Do you know what a turn signal is? Thanks for the warning! Stupid fuck. So why do I keep thinking about this stuff all the time? I need to practice non-attachment. Of course, if I practice non-attachment, I could become attached to it. Non-attachment. Non-attainment. Sir Richard Attenborough. Richard Burton. The explorer, not the actor. General 'Chinese' Gordon. Killed at Khartoum. That guy just floated that stop sign. Stupid fuck. Twelve years. Twelve fucking years. Shit – I just missed my exit. That guy floating the stop sign totally distracted me."

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heehee...
That's funny. I think we all do the mind twist. Most of the time we don't even realize we're doing it until it's done.

Big Brother has the right idea, appreciate what you have when you have it.

Mindovermary

mcarp said...

What you call 'the mind twist' is what Buddhism calls 'discursive thinking,' and yes, we all do it. Part of the purpose of meditation is to stop 'the mind twist' and instead be connected to what's happening around us.

Anonymous said...

Man, your brain sounds just like mine. I've been studying Taoism to discipline the monkey mind; it's getting better, but some days I'm still pretty bad.