Present Moment Experience

This post inspired by Alan Alda from his book Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

It is not the destination the matters but the journey, the looking, the search. The investigation, the activity of looking is where meaning lives. It is what we do everyday in moments of ordinariness. This is where we can rescue our humanity. This is not something extraordinary or magical, is here and now, available in the present moment. 

A bell and stand I made a while ago.
I have materials to make a couple of more.

This will end up with a bit of self analysis but I feel the exercise is worthwhile. 

Note to self -- Practice being present. Give up searching, sense-making, measuring, troubles. Notice the breath, its constancy, its flavor, the pressure, the coolness as it flow in then out. It does its job without any direction from the conscious me. It is supportive of my life. Relax into the ever present moment of now. 

How often am I alive in the moment like this? Honestly typically much less than 1% of my waking life. And I feel that this is that most important thing for leading a happy, virtuous life. I'm strongly incongruent with my own vision of a happy, virtuous life. What would it be like if was to do this even 1% of my waking life? What would it be like if was to do this 5% of my waking life? What would it be like if was to do this 10% of my waking life?  

• 1440 total minutes in a day
• 480 spent sleeping
• 960 minutes awake
• 1% present moment living = 9.6 minutes
• 5% present moment living = 48 minutes
• 10% present moment living = 96 minutes

I have to say that even when I meditate for 25 minutes in the morning, there is really only a minute or three that I’m alive in the present moment. The rest of the time I’m failing or partially succeeding in taming the elephant that is my mind. Work to do! Practice and try, try, try.

Distracted

“It’s none of my business what people think of me.”

— Paraphrasing Richard Feynman

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Latest metal working project. A 6 sided fire pit. Welded and ready for paint. I used this project to practice my TIG welding skills. I hope I got a bit better. It take time, seat time, to get skilled at any endeavor. 

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Life can be full of distractions. But exactly are we being distracted from? Can we choose what we are distracted towards? I think this is individual.

Ultimately distractions keep us from being present with whatever is happening. Being present to whatever is happening is the path to leading a virtuous life.

Distractions can be petty, like being distracted at dinner time by reading the newspaper. Sometimes we use distractions to avoid painful choices in life - this can be less than petty. The problem is we are poor judges of our distractions are mild and when they are holding is back from living a full and engaged life. 

Rather than worrying about distractions, I want to focus on being present and begin to notice when I'm drifting away from being present, and just return. This is hard work and something I’m practicing with mixed success. 

Links I Loved This Week
The Paradox of Expectations (by Guy Tal)

Poetry

Poetry. I’d have never thought it would speak to me. Of course I haven’t given it a chance and the chances I did give poetry soured me on it. I think it is because some poets are heavy into metaphor and simile (what ever that is) and what attracts me is a simpler way, a painting of a real picture not something pointing towards something else, hoping the poor reader (me) is smart enough to get the reference. 

This make for 3 poets I found I enjoy, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins and now Raymond Carver. 

Maybe low-brow but it is me.

I’m surprised to find reading this poetry compounds meaning as in clarifying experience, bring more fully in the present.

Where Water Comes Together with Other Water by Raymond Carver

Who knew I’d love poetry. I’m a poetry lover! At least a Raymond Carver poetry lover.

I want help finding other poets of this caliber. One's who don't try and impress us with metaphors and similes.

I found this collection lively. Parts where dark but so is life. Apparently Raymond's contained some pretty dark parts. I felt guided, not talked down to and not asked to figure out tricky metaphors.

Favorites: Fear, The Ashtray, The poem I didn’t write, My Dad’s Wallet, The Pipe, My Death, and A Haircut

Now I’m on to A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carter another collection of his poems.

Compounding Meaning

“In the morning, when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.”

— Marcus Aurelius Meditations V.1

2011 Post Op Brain MRI. The start of my new life.

Living a meaningful life is not a matter of compounding activities, but the compounding of meaning. What does ‘compounding meaning’ connote here? 

Resting in wonder together with ambiguity.

Adding a rich salience to experience. 

A connection, undirected and pervasive.

A built memory that are nurtureing.

The taste of presence.

These also compress time and expand our movement. We can drop out of time as we congenitally think of it. We move fast along a life mastery path picking up speed as we ‘compound meaning’.

Time as a mental model

“So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.”

— Seneca

For me a mental model is any big or small notion that I can apply in my life. Some mental models are grand and have multiple applications like, understanding biases and compounding interest, some less so but are still useful like opportunity cost and F=ma. (Here is a link to a big list of metal models.) We all have mental models we apply to how we understand the world we inhabit. Examining and developing these is a path to a greater understand and happier interactions.  

Today I’m motivated to explore time as a mental model with random thoughts. 

Time, a resource. Finite. We have no idea of the “unexplored reserves”. We can’t know how much is left to us. We don’t know where we are on the continuum call “our life”. I'm no where near the beginning, but am I halfway (I think well past this threshold), am I 80% done or 90% or maybe even 99% done? How knows. We'll see. 

I want to be conscious of my use of time. I only need to be courageous for 30 seconds at a time and this applies to every moment. 

Sitting meditation (zazen) allows the exploration of the feelings around time. Time during meditation is experienced to speed up, slow down, go missing, be smooth or be filled with pain or emotion. Never the same. 

Dogen's Uji - "being time" is a bit different from our usual concept of time. Kind of a mashup of lived experience and the present moment. 

Past and future are dreams, we have unreliable recollections and are poor predictors. Dwelling in either the past or the future is a poor, impoverished what to interact with the world. Of course we can learn from the past where we can and it is healthy to prepare for the future when we can, but dwelling there is not healthy. Dwelling in the past and future fixes events and outcomes in our minds and lets us to lead our lives under false notions of our past and unrealistic expectations of the future. Even if our notions of the past and future are true, why would we want to distracted from “Uji” - being time with what did or will happen anyway?

Our experience of the past and future are very impoverished experientially compared to what is available in the present. To trigger the past, it needs memories (remember these are fallible) and the future needs predictions (we’re notoriously bad at this). The present is fully here, all of it is available, no need for extra metal processing. Easy peasy!

7 Ways to Get the Superpower of Diversification

“The mark and attitude of the ordinary man: never look for help or harm from yourself, only from outsiders. The mark and attitude of the philosopher: look for help and harm exclusively from yourself.”

— Epictetus - Enchiridion 48

1. Diversify ideas
   Brain storm and don’t worry about whether or not ideas seem connected. Consider this "building your idea muscle.” Ideas connect and become useful in often surprising ways. 
2. Diversify relationships
   I’m an introvert and sort of proud of it. Well, I’d say more than proud, I’ve embraced my inner introversion. But this is an area wanting attention. More meetings equal a broader world view and this we can use.
3. Diversify the day
   Watch routines, that they are not followed blindly and without awareness. Be mindful. If I don’t steer my activities, someone or something else will take over. Changing up my activities keeps things fresh and invites new opportunities.
4. Diversify creative output
   I’m learning that environment is key to the creative process. Maybe you like it messy and unstable. Maybe orderly and familiar. Don’t be stuck. Try different environments and watch the outcomes. Try different outlets: woodworking, metalworking, blogging, journaling, sewing, cooking...
5. Diversify thoughts
   I spend too much time thinking about food and women or is it, women and food. I miss out one billions of other fun lines of thought. If I had to recite my thought process it would immediately become boring and repetitive. Meditation helps the thought process to slow down. Both while meditating and between meditation sessions. It tames and trains the “monkey mind”.
6. Diversify reading 
   Too much of one genera and a dearth of others is recipe for a one sided world view. I currently read three books at a time. Based on the technology of the reading experience not based on genera. 96% non fiction philosophy or science. Maybe adding a forth book in the fiction genera is called for. Reading is the only thing that keeps me from ignorance.
7. Diversify fitness
   This is a way to stay motivated. At different times explore diet, weight training, steady state cardio, NEAT, walking, backpacking, flat water kayaking. It would be sad to be 90 years old and reflect back to 2017 and know that if I had done a few things differently I wouldn’t hurt so much every time I pee. 

The seed for this post came from James Altucher.

Stay On the Bus

I write these blog posts as a reminder to myself about the work yet to accomplish ia n the project called “Will”. I am not perfect or even near average in most of the practices I write about. They are meant as reminders for me to get with it. This is self journaling. This is a compassionate act towards myself. An act of love. Sharing in public. 

There are lots of other benefits to blogging. 

• Gather a tribe
  • I’m still refining this. 
  • Share who I am and gather around like minded people.
• Public journaling
  • Being public exposes my notions to scrutiny.
  • Many eyes prevents fooling myself
  • Sharing is caring
• Exploring and developing mental models
  • Here I have to exercise my caution and be vigilantly watch for confirmation bias.  
  • More mental models equates to less ignorance, fear and surprise.
  • Writing and reading are what separates me from ignorance.
• Flush out ideas
  • Writing makes my mental models clearer. 
  • Someone once said, “I don’t know what I think till I write it down.” In my experience there is some truth here.
• Adds value to life
  • It answers the question “What is blogging's effect on the things I find most valuable in my life?”
• It's a positive habit
  • Allows me to explore habit development.
  • Kaizen is the Japanese principle of making continuous small, incremental improvement. This applies to my writing and posting to this blog. 
  • 0.01% improvement with each post will eventually lead to a compounded growth. We’ll see what happens. Can I sustain this? Mastery requires consistency.

I follow James Clear in line and a year ago he wrote of Arno Rafael Minkkinen's June of 2004New England School of Photography commencement speech. The Helsinki Bus Station Theory.

Using the metaphor of the Helsinki Bus Station he told of our propensity to get off one train of activity when we find it difficult, boring, or having already been done before and look for a “bus” that is easy, exciting, or unique. Never fully exploring the "bus route". This can apply to any endeavor. He advises to "stay on the bus” and eventually it diverges from the others  on their routes and the route becomes your own. This is an area can learn from. Keep it up. I don’t know where my projects will lead. Especially this blogging one.

Stay on the bus!