As I was trying to catch up on Social Media today, running around clicking links like a whirling dervish, I ran across one that made me stop and think. When you consider the time and effort required to master this, it is truly amazing.
I was entranced and couldn’t understand how the people in the background could just walk away in the middle of the performance. So, a “Small Stone” experience that calmed my scattered brain.
4
comments
I have come to the conclusion that my life is too busy for scheduled moments of quiet contemplation. There are too many interruptions and unexpected events for me to succeed with a daily commitment of any kind. I do well to check email regularly. It didn’t used to be this way. I used to work 40 hours a week at a day job that was an hour away from my home. That meant roughly 11 hours a day, including lunches, was committed. I got two days a week off and spent them doing chores, shopping, and paying bills. I still managed to read, watch TV, socialize. I didn’t have a lot of free time, but I didn’t really notice for a long time. When I did notice, it was how much time I spent on the road, driving back and forth. I began to resent those two hours a day. I wanted to be able to spend them doing something else.
Then I “retired.” It wasn’t too bad at first. I was going to school and that meant everyone knew I still had job-like obligations. They didn’t expect me to be available 24/7. Whenever they saw me with books or on the computer, they assumed it was for school and accepted it as necessary. Then I graduated. It took a couple of months for everyone to realize I didn’t intend to get a “job.”
Once I was “officially” free of outside influences, they began to impinge on my time. It seems they don’t see why I can’t drop whatever I’m doing to help them out. Don’t misunderstand, I usually can and I’m usually willing to do so. It’s just that there’s no boundary. I’m always getting interrupted. Every interruption is a single drop, but all of them together form an overwhelming flood.
So, I’m putting people on notice. I am back in school. This semester, I will be taking one online class and one on campus. We’ll see how it goes. I now have “real” obligations, not just my own desire to write, not just posting to blogs, not just research for myself. I will have deadlines for papers, classes to attend, tests to study for and reading that must be done.
Maybe I will get fewer interruptions and I won’t be able to say, “Sure, I can do that,” every time someone asks. Maybe I’ll even find a couple of hours a week to do my own research and writing. Small stones to build a dam with so that I can stem the flood.
3
comments
Today has been too busy to study details. My six month old great-grandson woke up at 8am and decided he didn’t need a nap today. He dozed in spite of himself while we were in the truck on the way to and from the grocery store, a total of 15 minutes in our small town. He wasn’t demanding attention the whole time, he never does, but the simple fact that he was awake meant my concentration was limited.
I worked on a guest blog post for Lara Britt of Writing Space. She had asked for a piece on my travels through Nowhere, USA. Look for it on Tuesday, maybe not this Tuesday, but some Tuesday. In fact, go by her space every Tuesday, or any other day. It’s a great blog.
Between the baby and grocery shopping, it took all day to finish writing and find the photos to go with it. Now, I need to go heat up some barbecue and grilled beans for dinner. My stones today have been the kind that roll under your foot as you are trekking through the woods and make you grab for the nearest branch to keep from falling. Some days are just like that.
Tomorrow should be better. The baby’s mother doesn’t have to work, only go to two classes with an hour break between. I’ll only have him from 10am or so until about 3pm instead of all day. Oh, I also need to go to the Social Security office and DMV. That should give me plenty of time to be contemplative. Waiting in line is always an exercise in patience.
1
comments
I guess I’m being a rebel….By that I mean I’m not really following the prescribed format for this exercise, especially today. However, as justification, this is a process I usually do without thinking much about. I do think about whether or not to do it for months and try everything else possible first, but once the decision is made, I simply open the window, type the command and go do something else until it finishes. This morning, I am paying attention.
My office has two computers. The one I use all the time, that is password protected so other people can’t get on it without permission, and the “family” one. The latter one currently has major issues which demonstrate why mine is password protected. Today, I am reformatting it. It has two hard drives. I’ve started with the first one. It is 58% done.
I opened a command prompt window. A square box. Black background with a blue bar at the top and gray ones on the other three sides. The bar on the right is wider with a slider tab. On the black screen are two lines of text proclaiming Microsoft’s ownership of the operating system and listing the version. Below that is a C: prompt, waiting. I type onto the line: format D: (Because the machine has two drives and I want to clear everything off both of them. C: is where the operating system lives, so I started with the data drive.)
A message came up: “The type of file system is NTFS.
Warning all data on the non-removable disk Drive D: will be lost! Proceed with Format (Y/N)?”
I have thought about this for several weeks, and normally I’d just go ahead, but today I consider the meaning of the sentence and the reasons for this action. The machine is infested with malware. It frequently locks up and has to be restarted to free it. We had it in the shop recently to be cleaned up, but it still isn’t working properly. This is the next step before I try replacing hardware. The format procedure simply writes over the whole disk. It puts markers to tell the system what file type to use. If it finds bad sectors, it will also repair those.
Of course, in reality I know the data will still be there, buried below the overwrite that is about to happen. A professional with the correct tools would be able to recover it, if necessary. I also know, in this case, it won’t be.
I typed a “y” and hit enter. Now it’s a matter of waiting……81 per cent done.
When it finishes, I’ll start the process on the C: drive. Then I will spend the afternoon reinstalling the operating system which will probably require a call the the Microsoft service center (somewhere that has no native born English speakers) since the operating system is still XP and has been reinstalled several times. This machine is almost an antique. We built it in 2003 or maybe 2002. In either case, ten years, probably something like 100 in human terms. Amazing that it still works at all.
2
comments
Breath is an amazing thing. It expresses your emotions, getting faster and more shallow when you are afraid, faster and deeper when you are excited. Slower and deeper when you are relaxed. Breath control can also help control your emotions. Deliberately breathing deeper and slower can help to calm you down. Breathing deeper and faster will infuse your brain with oxygen and wake you up.
If you do Yoga, your Yogi has undoubtedly advised you to control your breathing as you move through the poses. In fact, almost any exercise program will emphasize the importance of breath control.
As part of my morning meditation routine, I sit Lotus (Well, as near to it as my damaged knees will allow.) with my hands open on my knees, thumbs and middle fingers touching, eyes closed. I straighten my back, reaching upward with the crown of my head. Breathe in for a slow count of four. Hold for a slow count of seven. Breathe out for a slow count of nine. Repeat the sequence four times.
The idea is to relax, focus your mind, and cleanse your lungs. Then simply let your mind go blank. That’s the hard part. I hear a train in the distance, cars on the street out front, a door closing downstairs. I work at shutting it all out. I know it can be done because I hear none of this when I am reading, very little of it when I am writing. On the mornings when I am simply unable to focus, I turn on soft, instrumental music and let it hide the background noises. I listen for that still small voice, be it God, inspiration, creativity, memory, the inner me.
Every time my mind wanders, I pull it back to the tones, the rhythm, the notes. I hope the day comes when I can automatically slip into trance. It hasn’t yet. I seldom achieve anywhere near it and it’s always hard work. I set a timer and keep at it for a full fifteen minutes regardless of how successfully it’s going. I’d like to expand the time frame, but I am afraid I’ll never be able to do that. There’s just too much pulling me away.
0
comments