Wednesday, August 9: Slowing and Nowing

THE SLOWING AND THE NOWING
Is nowing a word? Is it a world? Yes to the second, and hey, maybe we are on the way to making yes an answer to the first question. Nowing. Spend your days nowing along. Kind of like puttering, but not just in a garden.

I ran for City Council of the City of Sonoma, California once. My campaign was Slow down, realize you are alive now. Don’t drive so fast, and drive less. Slow down and realize you are alive now, instead of always being in a rush off to the next thing. The so-called Quality of Life in Sonoma could only be really enjoyed if we took the time to be in the moment with friends and family and nature.

Well, I didn’t win, and the message is still useful, and the blogsite tag is still slowsonoma.com.

Slow down, because in a rush we forget that this breathing, walking, sitting, smiling, noticing miracle at the center of our life is us. If we are in a rush our attention is on the Next Thing, or The List, or even a generalized Anxiety about So Much to Do. When our attention is already out the door and in the car and having arrived at some meeting we are in a rush to get to, we miss our feet right now on the floor as we walk to the door, we miss our hand right now as it turns the door knob, we miss looking at the sky and feeling the fresh air, and smelling the fresh air when we open the door, we miss the sounds of the birds as we walk to the car, we miss the chance to think: do I really want to be in a big piece of metal and air pollution making? Wouldn’t I rather walk or be on a bicycle?

Of course if we are in a rush, we don’t have time to ride a bicycle or to walk. We are Important, and the more things we can cram in our day, the more proof that we are Important. Of course, this feeling of Being Important is a cover for a shallowness of a life that is not happy in the moment. Since we aren’t real, we want to be a Big Shot. Then even if we don’t know we are alive, other people seem to and that must count for something right? This is how we are trained to be robots instead of humans: outside validation and attention is what matters; the real, moment to moment sensing and breathing and noticing our lives: nah, that’s only for old people and weirdoes and babies. The rest of us need to rush around, until we fall over, or start to drink our wine, or finally go on our vacation.

Until then, life is a rush, which is to say: we aren’t really alive.

Is that how we want to live?

I don’t think so, do you?