Talking the Walk
Yesterday Josh and I set out to walk to the supermarket. Seconds after we were through the university gate, I let out a long and distressed sigh. My companion did not take notice of the sigh as I'd expected, so I asked myself, What’s on your mind? and what I found was a little surprising. There was nothing on my mind.
So what was the deep sigh all about? After a moment of confusion, I discovered that it was just a habit I’d formed. Every time Josh and I go for a walk, I empty out the contents of my mind as though it were a ‘junk drawer’ from the kitchen. With the scattered contents, Josh facilitates a discussion in which we throw out all the useless junk and organize the important stuff neatly back into the drawer.
Thankfully I have a number of friends with this skill. I don’t know how well I would survive without them.
I decided to tell Josh about what had just taken place in my head and how I had been a Pavlov’s dog with the walking and my sigh. We walked and I told him of how my drawer felt a pleasant emptiness, the conversation periodically interrupted by our need to separate for survival. [Sharing a narrow and pockmarked sidewalk with fruit stands, birdcages, cyclists, parked cars and moving cars makes it impossible to stroll side by side.]
I was having one of those days where I'd decided most of my thoughts and words were needlessly thought and spoken. In a way, though, I felt like I had cut myself loose from the need to think. Loose from everything that bothered me. I was suddenly so detached that I couldn’t even remember what it was like to concern myself with…anything.
All those thoughts about my future. All those thoughts about my past. All those thoughts about what other people are thinking of me. All those thoughts about what I think of other people. All that time.
“We are just floating around out here. I feel so insignificant and ashamed for thinking about myself so much. All that struggle to make sense of myself; what a waste of time. What is time anyway?”
Josh quickly replied, “Ask that to someone with cancer. Every minute is defined. We have all of eternity to float around; we only have a finite number of years to be here. You can only talk this way because you aren't suffering.”
And then I felt clarity. I thought, I have to become part of something more important than myself and I have to do it quick. I felt rushed because in the very back of my mind, I knew these feelings wouldn’t stay with me for long. Now, they were so crisp and tangible, but soon I would be in the grocery store and in the midst of all those people and products and sounds, I would lose them in aisles of soap and air freshener. I would let them get lost.
It would be just like that feeling you get when you walk out of the theatre after watching a movie like Hotel Rwanda; so desperate to help. Absolutely inexcusable to stop thinking about this movie and to forget about suffering.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Can I think myself into action?
I feel like I need to sit down have a serious discussion with myself in which we carefully consider what sacrifices I can make. I am trying to get all up in my face and make a lasting impression.
So what was the deep sigh all about? After a moment of confusion, I discovered that it was just a habit I’d formed. Every time Josh and I go for a walk, I empty out the contents of my mind as though it were a ‘junk drawer’ from the kitchen. With the scattered contents, Josh facilitates a discussion in which we throw out all the useless junk and organize the important stuff neatly back into the drawer.
Thankfully I have a number of friends with this skill. I don’t know how well I would survive without them.
I decided to tell Josh about what had just taken place in my head and how I had been a Pavlov’s dog with the walking and my sigh. We walked and I told him of how my drawer felt a pleasant emptiness, the conversation periodically interrupted by our need to separate for survival. [Sharing a narrow and pockmarked sidewalk with fruit stands, birdcages, cyclists, parked cars and moving cars makes it impossible to stroll side by side.]
I was having one of those days where I'd decided most of my thoughts and words were needlessly thought and spoken. In a way, though, I felt like I had cut myself loose from the need to think. Loose from everything that bothered me. I was suddenly so detached that I couldn’t even remember what it was like to concern myself with…anything.
All those thoughts about my future. All those thoughts about my past. All those thoughts about what other people are thinking of me. All those thoughts about what I think of other people. All that time.
“We are just floating around out here. I feel so insignificant and ashamed for thinking about myself so much. All that struggle to make sense of myself; what a waste of time. What is time anyway?”
Josh quickly replied, “Ask that to someone with cancer. Every minute is defined. We have all of eternity to float around; we only have a finite number of years to be here. You can only talk this way because you aren't suffering.”
And then I felt clarity. I thought, I have to become part of something more important than myself and I have to do it quick. I felt rushed because in the very back of my mind, I knew these feelings wouldn’t stay with me for long. Now, they were so crisp and tangible, but soon I would be in the grocery store and in the midst of all those people and products and sounds, I would lose them in aisles of soap and air freshener. I would let them get lost.
It would be just like that feeling you get when you walk out of the theatre after watching a movie like Hotel Rwanda; so desperate to help. Absolutely inexcusable to stop thinking about this movie and to forget about suffering.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Can I think myself into action?
I feel like I need to sit down have a serious discussion with myself in which we carefully consider what sacrifices I can make. I am trying to get all up in my face and make a lasting impression.
posted by B | 7:26 AM
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