How did I get here from there?

Sometime in the middle of the last century Alan Watts had this bit in one of his books. He said something like – think of a line of seventeen dots where the one on the left is the least, the right the most, spiritual. Where would you put yourself was his question. The answer, of course…if you put yourself anywhere you are nowhere. (I’m not doing this justice, but you get the idea.)

I thought of this the other day when I was on my back deck doing tai chi. A drunk came up to the back door of the neighbor’s house. I have to tell you, in our neighborhood, this is all going on 20 feet away, tops. So my lady neighbor came out and said, ‘Go away, Al, you’re drunk,’ to which Al said, several times, ‘I want to talk to your husband,’ to which neighbor said, ‘this is my house too and I’m telling you to get out of here.’ I’m parting the wild horse’s mane. From my vantage point I could see that another neighbor, across the street and down a bit, was heading over.

Man neighbor got to the door and he told drunk person to go away and drunk person did, after five minutes more of back and forth. Neighbor from across the street and down a bit is getting closer and I’m waving hands as clouds doing my best impression of someone who is above all this shit. Man neighbor goes back in his, oops, their house and across the street and down a bit finally makes it to the rescue. He’s in a wheelchair and borderline ancient (like me) so his intervention is a delightful mix of chivalry and delusion but hey. By now I’m creeping low like a snake and about to step up to the seven stars. It’s all pretty much in hand and it looks like I’m going to be able to shoot the tiger and get out of here when, bless her heart, neighbor lady looks my way and asks at volume heard three doors in every direction, ‘Valerie, have you met …?’

So, I’ve swept the Lotus but it looks like drawing the bow to shoot the Tiger is out of the question. I rather grudgingly lean on the railing and join the conversation. In the back of my soon-to-be-enlightened mind (my delusion) I’m feeling that this is all something I should not be subjected to. WTF, right?

We consoled, we fumed, we vented, we calmed, we called it  a day and two doors down wheeled away and neighbor lady said she’d have to find someone else to mow the lawn during their vacation. Drunk fella was going to do it but now… I said I’d be glad to, no problem. Neighbor lady happy. Yay. Now I’m really full of myself. I’m the spiritual person who was doing the tai chi and had to put up with this disruptive life stuff then had to talk to the neighbors and didn’t close the tai chi but in the end I got to save the day.

Good news is, it only took maybe five minutes for me to recognize how full of shit I am. How, if it weren’t for my freaking ego I’d recognize in the moment that we were neighbors sharing a moment. The bad news is that now I’m quite pleased with myself for being so evolved as to only take five minutes or so to get a grip… 

Stuck at square one and loving it.  

Let's slow down and think about this.

It seems that having the idea is good enough. Slap our hands together in that whew-that's-done manner and get on with the next thing. But what happens to the first thing. Usually nothing.

 We've got a long way to go when it comes to figuring out how to really live in this info age. It's one thing to absorb the info needed to operate the gadgets that give access to more and more info. (Whoa, and you sound like a raving lunatic talking about it.) But it's quite another thing to know when to shut 'er down.

Luckily, people have been 'shuttin' 'er down' since there WERE people, probably. And before. You only have to be around an animal of any sort for a while to know they meditate regularly. And I know, I know, I've gone on and on about this before. But here's the thing.

My friend went to class yesterday to learn to use her phone. I mean, it's the kind of thing that makes you give your head a shake. And what's that got to do with following through. Well, I know she had a project she was in the middle of that was really important. But this came up. Had to learn to use the phone to get more info to stop the processes that she is involved with and so on and so on...

I think it's a capitalist plot. Keeps us cogs chugging away achieving nothing but the satisfaction of having chugged. Often we're chugging on behalf of those who ARE following through because they have chuggers. And the billions we spend on having the latest equipment and connections with which to chug. Well. The mind boggles.

But where to get the courage to simply 'shut 'er down'. If I knew, would I be sitting here having coffee with you and Mac. I mean, really. There's a kiln that needs to be unloaded and orders are backing up and I need to get the roof fixed before it rains again...

Thinking it through. In the midst of the flurry. . .

With so many things coming at us from every direction, it's harder to find time to think. Think about it. When's the last time you really took a good chunk of time just to ponder an immediate situation. Everything needs an immediate answer, right? Wrong.

One of the best things most of us can do for ourselves is to learn (relearn) the simple phrase, "Let me think about that." Second only to, "I'll sleep on it and get back to you."