Do You Ever Feel Like You Have Too Many Interests, and Other Ramblings

Note: this is long and rambly due to having typed this up in the middle of the night

THE DILETTANTE

Do you ever feel like you have too many interests? Right now I'm interested in:

• meditation
• trying the sport of paddleball
• playing the ukulele
• learning more about the stock market
• physics
• using the digital drawing tools for my iPad
• programming in Python

I'm finding I want to do everything, learn everything, but don't seem to have the time to do it.

It's a fun problem to have, I think. In the past, there were periods when I was uninterested in anything, when I was most likely depressed. 

Things are very good these days.  It's not about the outside, but what's going on within. I am learning everything will change, transform, and disappear eventually. What am I saying...it's happening now, as I type this.  

I know it's odd to say "I am learning" this very obvious fact of life, but I don't think it really "registered" with me in a way that was real until recently. I'm a late bloomer.

So yes, things change. May I be able to roll with the punches when they do.

***

THE TERRIBLE FORTIES

Incidentally, I'm near the age that is supposedly the UNHAPPIEST age according to some survey. What age, you ask? Forty-seven.

Of course, I don't REALLY believe 47 is the most miserable age. Well, I do and I don't. I do because this is when a lot of women can get perimenopausal/menopausal. The hormones shift and no small percentage of women report they are often feeling intensely sad, exhausted, overwhelmed, depressed, angry, paranoid, anxious, etc. "I don't remember feeling this crazy since I was a teen", is what I'll hear. This is on top of all the physical changes of wrinkling, greying, hot flashes, insomnia, bathroom issues, weight gain, etc. etc. 

As for myself, I think this shift began for me 2-3 years ago (still going through it now). I credit meditation (and a patient husband) for helping me through the rollercoaster thus far. It's why I started and stuck with it to begin with. Yay for suffering? The great motivator?

So I can definitely believe that 47--around the time of "the shift", can be a very trying period (pun unintended!) 

And a lot of men are unhappy around this time as well. My belief is that it might also have to do with THEIR changing hormonal levels; namely the decline in testosterone.

And usually this is all under the challenging specter of the mid-life/existential crisis. And a time when our parents begin having health issues as well. Fun stuff.

I'm not going to expect things will get necessarily get "better" after 47 though, despite what the survey says. Nobody knows what will happen. To this body. To family. To friends. To this society. To this world. The only thing I can hope for is cultivating the right attitude and state of mind to deal with whatever comes my way, good or bad. That's the most important goal I foresee...at least it seems to me...right now. Will this goal change tomorrow? In a year? I don't know.

***

ADVENTURES IN SITTING

I was trying Shikantaza meditation the other day, on my husband's recommendation. That's a type of meditation where the object is to sit. Yep, that's all there is to it. Just sitting. It's actually harder to do than it sounds.

After I sat with some difficulty for 45 minutes, I asked, "so what's the point of all this? What is this supposed to do?" 

My husband replied, "To make you stop asking those kinds of questions."

The Holy Man and the Waterfall

Recently I've felt this tremendous pressure between my eyes while meditating. Apparently it's a common issue but the advice on alleviating it ranges from "learn to accept it and continue your practice" to "stop immediately and do something else." Ah, the endless and contradictory wisdom of the internet.

So I've taken a break, just to be safe. My sis said that area between the eyes is a "chakra point." I asked her what that meant and what I can do about it, and she said she has no idea. Haha, oh well!

In any case, until I find a teacher who knows what's up, I'm continuing to read through my Ram Dass book and explore other types of meditation practices.

Dass's book "Journey of Awakening", which provides instructions on many different styles of meditation, is also peppered with stories and bits of wisdom from sources ranging far and wide, including the Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Sufi, Buddhist.

I particularly loved this excerpt, a passage from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. It shows, among other things, that meditation doesn't have to be limited to the act of sitting down and focusing on your breath: (parentheses added for clarity)

There is a sadhu (holy man) in Hrishikesh who gets up early in the morning and stands near a great waterfall. He looks at it the whole day and says to God: "Ah, You have done well! Well done! How amazing!" He doesn't practice any other form of japa (mantra) or austerity. At night he returns to his hut.

How simple. Some would call the above a silly and wasted day, but I can't imagine a day more beautiful or lovely.

Ranting about Alcohol

One of my goals this year is to be more accepting of people. As if on cue, within a few weeks I realized pretty quickly where I draw a hard line...

I can't stand drunks.

The only way I can tolerate drunkenness is if I get drunk myself. And I've acquired a distaste for alcohol so that's not gonna happen any time soon.

I think about somebody like Christ, looking out at all his followers. Loving the prostitutes and lepers and outcasts of society. For some reason this seems significantly easier to me than accepting and loving drunks. Maybe Jesus loved them, but from afar. Like arm's length.

By "drunks", I don't necessarily mean alcoholics. Alcoholics are people who are struggling with a difficult issue.

I mean people, alcoholic or not, who are actually drunk in the moment. In a way, I feel like "they" (the drunk person) doesn't even exist, and I'm wasting time interacting with them. Because I'm actually interacting with a bottle of vodka, not an actual person.

I've worked in the hospitality industry and have had to deal with a lot of drunkenness. This is partly where my bias comes from. I've also dealt with a lot of people who were high from weed.

I tell ya, I LOVED people who were high. At least they didn't start fights, usually tipped well and weren't aggressive. They were also respectful.  In contrast, I really, REALLY did not like serving people who were wasted.