Art Attack Central

Fixing stuff, myself included…

Tuesday?

Of course it’s Tuesday; are you mad?

Mr. Potatoehead once told me, “there’s more to life than freecell.” However, when your brother has a winning streak of 118 games in a row and still counting, it does make you wonder.

Wonder what?

Where is my next cup of coffee?

What is my project for today?

What would I really like to be doing?

What should I be doing?

How come I’m doing what I’d like to be doing?

Why don’t I have 118 games in a row?

Do you really care about freecell?

Hell no.

What do you really care about then?

I guess what I really care about is being in the moment, but notice I said guess. Why do I have to guess what I really care about? Maybe what I care about changes from moment to moment, and that’s why it’s so important to be in the moment so I won’t mistake what’s important for what’s not. Oh that’s just crap.

Are you going to spend your whole life trying to figure out what’s important?

That does appear to be the case, but that’s not entirely true. Although, that doesn’t necessarily mean that when I’m not wondering about what’s important, I’m doing something important. Then again, maybe it does. Maybe that means I am what I doing; I am the doing.

But, if you’re not aware of yourself while doing it?

Doing what? Just kidding. Is it the doing, or the awareness of doing while doing? Boy that’s an awful lot of doing if you ask me. So often we forget ourselves; we are caught up in whatever it is we are doing. In some cases that seems to be a good thing; to be totally absorbed in the activity of drawing, or painting for instance. That sort of activity requires a rather Zen like concentration, but so many times I forget to “see” when thought takes over.

What do you mean, when thought takes over?

This conversation seems to be going in circles, but really it’s not. To be totally absorbed in what one is doing removes thought.

Are you saying thought is not a good thing?

Not exactly; more to the point, and it is a very fine point, would be to say that thought interferes with being totally present. Perhaps awareness requires a silent mind, not a dull or a bored mind, but rather a quiet mind, a one pointed mind.

What?

A one pointed mind is just that. An awareness without thought, behind an activity, any activity. If I’m walking down the street, and “thinking” of things I’m going to do tomorrow, I’m not aware of walking, because of the talking in my head. I’m not aware of the tiny flecks of mica in the street, which I may never see again from that particular position, or the angle of the three birds streaking across the sky, or the yellow truck followed by the red car with the dent in the side. Only if my mind is quiet will I see what is only there once to see. It is always changing; it is never the same, and that is truely a miracle, every moment a miracle.

“Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.”

–Hermann Hesse

Maybe, because it’s Tuesday you’d like to answer some of these questions for yourself, or maybe not, because that would require too much thinking.

“Designated driver, on the information highway.”