eThoughts : Slouching Towards Thriving?

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.

Heinrich Heine

Beware again, now it’s random musing that follows.

The ants used to build colonies in the garage. I chased them out many times. Then they came to forage and I was okay. As it turns out, it is not just them affecting my ecology, it is also me affecting theirs. It feels good to see this. It seems stupid not to.

I had trouble on the road again yesterday—folks driving as though they are the only ones. I get we have many levels of attention and skill. That’s what lanes are for, and spaces, and steering wheels, and brakes, and accelerators. Not to mention brains and necks and mirrors. Perhaps some believe if they feel safe, so does everyone else.

Dinner was quick—as in vacuumed down. I know better than this. I know that taste and digestion live in different biological time zones. Taste is quick, digestion not so much. Being mindful means allowing for these different zones. Sometimes mindfulness comes later, in the midst of groaning about the loss of it earlier.

I dreamt a woman and I were playing chicken on the road. She was driving a forklift and I a motorcycle. Then when I peeled off, she came at me anyway. I dodged and she crashed. I get the idea (and it’s not about women). Nonetheless, I do find it fascinating the theater my mind created. Using a forklift and a motorcycle to play chicken?

Exhaustion is upon me, like a heavy, wet, woolen blanket. It can be hard to move, to think, to track “reality.” Reality doesn’t seem to care anymore than a footprint in the sand cares whether it is found or not. Still we have to look, to seek. But when exhaustion’s weight bears down, we have to pause. Perhaps the footprint will not yet be washed away, but rest is the most real sign sometimes. Funny how reality works.

I wonder why we are not more astute. Some say it is evolution still crawling painfully up the ladder. I wonder. Evolution of the mind is a bit different than evolution of the physical vehicle. Nonetheless, it seems to me we are evolved enough already. If so, why do we not exhibit much of it? Perhaps it is too much responsibility and we worry we will not have enough time, while we text and compute and race and juke and respond with our first reaction.

A police person stopped me while I was walking and exercising and musing. He wondered where I lived. I told him the street name and waited. He eyed me. I waited. He asked me how was the neighborhood? Just then two dogs came running and barking and claiming the area. “There are these dog owners who do not seem to think dogs need more than food and water and a place to chase people,” I noted. He relaxed. He was in a car. I growled at the dogs. They were confused and ran off. A success? I don’t think the dog owners learned a thing. The police person thanked me and drove away.

It was a long day and I was slumped in the Jacuzzi trying to remember how to breathe again. Careers are interesting. Relationships are interesting. Both can be tiring. Sometimes it seems like just surviving when I need to be thriving. The fire in my fire pit was dancing and the fountain was bubbling and the night was soft, the wind gentle, the warm water embracing. What had seemed insane was now slowly morphing into mere stupidity, soon to be replaced by a grin. There is thriving, though sometimes we have to find it in the debris field left by trying to survive. It’s a bit like panning for gold, sifting the dirt away to find the gleam that is always there, somewhere.