One Lovely Blog. Or not.

Plans collapse.  Last week, I planned to write a Pedestrian Plea about high art, and then the hurricane hit.  This week, I planned to participate in One Lovely Blog, and then my teenager provoked another crisis.  Or maybe I provoked it.  Don't even talk to me if you have not raised a smart willful teenager in recent times.  Yes, it is worse than it used to be.  Much, much worse.  Someday I'll remove the gag order I've placed on myself, but not today.  

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Internettled? Work With It!

Photo Gryphon, Nettle Jellyfish, Creative Commons"Technology is Totally Screwing Up Our Minds," says my friend, Julie* via Facebook.  Really?  Are we frogs in lukewarm water unable to realize that we will soon boil to death?  Will our mind's ability to delve deeply atrophy in response to the many shallow jumps we make each day?  A link!  Did you click on it?  Are you back?  Well, I guess you must be, but we lost the other fellow.  As I was saying, are we doomed to distract ourselves out of all intention, unable to complete a task because we keep reacting to shiny little links, ads, and comments?  Sated with cheap sensation while starving for meaning and connection, the human species perishes. 

Actually, I happen to like technology,

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Internet "Holiday"

Updated on Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 11:59AM by Elena TaJo

Is Anybody there?

After some Facebook braggadocio about my prowess negotiating the Internet with ADD, my friend Julie invited me to write about it.  Yah, ok.  I can do that.  I've given a lot of thought to what I call the Associative Mind and how I want to advocate for a little freedom to roam.  So why am I procrastinating?  I am NOT procrastinating.  I am allowing my mind to roam!  Jotting notes here and there.  Things knocking about in my mind, creating those collisions and connections that I value so much. Yet the sentences seem to be behind a dam somewhere, along with all the coherent advice I thought I had to offer.  Perhaps all those collisions are just a pile-up, and the idea is somewhere under the rubble.

I decided to do an Internet Fast  to clear my confusion. 

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From the Inside

So, we've established that to be masters of our domain, to be masters of the Internet, we need to practice moving in and out, via ERRoR.   I have recommended a timer.  And I have heard you say that you ignore the timer.  Sometimes I do too.  Sometimes I'm sorry, and sometimes I know that it was the right thing to do.  "Rules are made to be broken," said my father the military man.  

But how do you know when you are on a fruitful exploration, and when you are addicted and need an external force to rip you away?  From the inside.  You know by paying attention to your whole being.  It really helps to have a meditation practice, but whether or not you formally meditate, getting to know your body and how it sends signals is the key to wisdom.  And happiness.  Actually, mostly happiness.  Because one of the agonies of modern life is that nagging sense that maybe I should be doing something else.

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Yes, it IS about Time

It's never really about time or money,  said a wise but mistaken psychotherapist.  

Yes, it IS about time, really.  Time is change, for one thing, and change is our only true master.  Now I write, but in 25 minutes it will be time to go to the podiatrist.  Later it will be time to go home, time to go to sleep, time to wake up, time to work, time to cook, time to do the dishes.  Time seems to move too fast, meaning that I am too slow to change.  I wish I could be time, as Zen Master Dogen teaches; I would be the clock, the moving part, the changing thing.  The problem is that I need time to truly absorb this lesson and I'm in too much of a rush to stop and…. 

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