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."