Monday, June 12: Wake up and live

WAKE UP AND LIVE
Wow. That seems pretty obvious doesn’t it, and then we can check out this very moment: am I awake to whether I’m breathing in or breathing out. Am I awake to where my spine is and how it’s connected to my pelvis and how the two of them and my brain are keeping my upright in the world. And what is the shape of my arms and legs right now?

These are all the qualities of being awake, and this is about living fully, not being good. Not being aware for it’s own sake, but for the sake of living a life where we are really at the center instead of being swept along as robot responders to whatever input comes our way. Phone rings and a certain robot goes off. Someone asks us, “How are you?” and another robot goes off. Someone mentions the political mess and another robot response of feelings and thinking goes off.

And our thinking, wonderful ability to learn, to compare and contrast, to check things out from different points of view, to explore and speculate. How do we use up our mental capacities, usually? Planning what to do next. Worrying how we are going to perform. Going over and over in our heads how someone else did us wrong or isn’t living their lives right.

And our interactions with each other. Gad, talk about robots in action. Always giving our children little orders and suggestions. Always hanging out with A to gossip about B and C. Starting what we have to say way before the other person has finished what they are saying. Hearing the other people saying what our robot perception of them has them pegged and pigeonholed as saying.

My oh my, this sounds like we could let of “thinking” get all bummed out about what robots we are most of the time. But why bother, that’s just another robot response: if things are hard, give up, get discouraged, don’t even play the game.

Except this: playing the wake up game is the best game in the world. Especially if we want to have rich and interesting and creativity lives. Especially if we want to be able to love and enjoy the people we are around instead of just bumping through our days with them nearby.