I was making my sandwich this morning, and it looked as if I would not have enough cheese for tomorrow's sandwich, even though I have enough baloney. My immediate thought was that I should stop at the grocery store after class tonight and pick-up some more cheese. (Swiss is on sale. It did not occur to me until just now that I should also pick up some more baloney, which is also on sale.) My next thought was, "Why do I need to have cheese on my baloney sandwich?" It won't improve the flavor, but I always put cheese on my sandwiches.
After moving past the baloney sandwich, I rinsed a bunch of grapes and added them to my lunch. Maybe because I was primed to note my own inanity, I wondered why I was rinsing my grapes. There is some guarantee of safety by purchasing the grapes from a grocery store. Even if the grapes are not actually safe, rinsing them for a few seconds in cold water is unlikely to make them safer. However, my mom always rinsed the grapes, so I do too.
I appear to live much of my life on autopilot. My naive understanding of Zen leads me to think they view this as negative, and that you should strive to live in every moment. I am ambivalent.
I don't know that I want to spend much time thinking about lunch. If I did, I would likely make better choices than baloney. Would these choices lead me to spend more time shopping for healthy and tasty foods to put in my lunch? Would I need to spend more time on creating a suitable environment for eating lunch? I imagine that answering these questions positively would lead me to a more contemplative life where I am required to participate in the production of what I eat.
What I really want to think about, which is why I don't spend time thinking about lunch, is: how can the algorithm efficiency question be resolved? how can I ensure my son is reaching toward happiness and is aware that I love him? how can I make my wife happier? how do I continue to connect with my daughter as her life separates further and further from mine?
However, as I write out the implications of thinking more about my lunch, I begin to wonder if my naive understanding of Zen is better suited to letting me think about what I want. A measured and contemplative life absorbed by ensuring that all moments and actions are noted, appreciated, and performed well, must lead to easier resolution of difficult questions than the quick tossing together of lunch so that I can beat the traffic jam where 495 crosses Route 3.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Sometimes, I wonder who is in control of my autopilot and if this method of controlling me will lead to my demise. (I'm assuming the environment is in control and I'm just buying in to the solution presented to me.) The two-edge sword is obvious to some and those are the folks that will tell you things like "watch what you ask for...". The deeper in autopilot-debt I get myself committed, the more I realize that any significant change, good or otherwise, in my life/routine can have unexpected and unwelcome side-affects like running red lights, putting non-food objects in the refrigerator or forgetting the name of a simple object like an orange while lost in thought. Since I'm someone who cannot live without a steady stream of transients, I find myself thinking ahead about times when I know I'll be in autopilot, idiotic! The only time I think about lunch is when I leave for work and when I dig it out of my bag just before consuming it. Sometimes, it can take weeks before I can deliver a change request to the preparer of the lunches and then it usually transpires through an unrelated event that pulls me away from my thoughts unexpectedly while in the kitchen or shopping for groceries or something related. This all leads me to ask: If Zen is about living/being in the moment then shouldn't there be a qualifier about how many times you must repeat a task or action before further focus on it detracts from the next moment waiting at some future t when autopilot could effectively shorten the delta between the present moment and the more fulfilling future present moment?
ReplyDelete