Okay it's official. I have this new mac and I swear it was designed for the sole purpose of making me feel like an utter and complete moron. I try to maintain my composure when I can't remember ever making the various passwords each system and program keeps impatiently asking for or when I can't contact anyone with significant savvy without being redirected to online service. Hello, if I weren't already fumbling with the whole online service I would have no need to wait long minutes in phone ques listening to music I would never otherwise subject my auditory appendages to. I want to take the screen by the shoulders and shake some sense into its sleek lined, techno touting, imac irritating, software. Alas, it stares back at me, utterly unfazed by my mounting irritation. I try to remain calm. I take deep breaths and yet I can't help feeling like this machine is an intruder, taking up my precious time in insular activities with the promise of so much more. Technology has become a language within a language, its rapidly evolving vocabulary requires devotional practice or you are hopelessly adrift in a senseless world of "http", "google clouds", "usernames" and "passwords" that could humble even Babel. If I wasn't so dependent on the damn thing (and it didn't cost such a pretty penny) I would pick it up and enthusiastically toss its hardward off a very high building.
Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the
Comments
hmmm
That mac is sweet..
It is operator error..
poor invalid..
macs run themself for everyone but my poor sister and my brother who likes to pee on them..
that is a private story though..
anyway..
3
3) When harmful places are abandoned, disturbing emotions gradually
diminish. Being without distraction, virtuous endeavors naturally increase.
Being clear-minded, certainty in the Dharma arises. Resorting to secluded places
is the bodhisattvas’ practice.
Oh, and the 21st century will probably will probably come crumbling around our ears when the solar flares hit....... but let's not dwell on the negative - the Mayan calendar will run out before that even happens, right?!?
Earl Doolittle
Doolittle & Slackmore
"Tackling today's toughest problems.....Tomorrow."