Om
Chucko (martin_bishop) gave me reason to contemplate more of the idea I call "Zen Slacking," and, since it is more introspective and less productive than carefully analyzing the week's media coverage of Democrats for Haynes Johnson's journalism class, I have sat and pondered it for these few minutes.
As a student with a more-than-minumum courseload and the idea in your head that good grades matter, a social life is important, and college is a time to do new things and experience life, it isn't at all surprising that you end up being tugged in a million directions by school, work, friends, your own expectations, the sudden desire for your head to explode, and so forth. We become paralyzed by the choices we must make daily, unable to sleep for all the thoughts and concerns running through your head like drunken frat-boy streakers.
My advice has always been to slowly recede for a short period of time. Sit on your ass somehow, maybe reading a book, watching TV, or just humming circus music to yourself, and let it all wash over you. Know that the things that really matter will reveal themselves, albeit angry and slightly late, and all the bullshit will go grumbling on as mere background noise. Sit and listen to your friends bullshit each other, sit in a shady place and watch the coeds crisscross the campus, watch a squirrel hop around in your backyard awhile...anything that puts work and worry as far from your mind and motivation as possible.
Mayhap it is only a rationalization for laziness, but what is relaxation and calming the mind other than just finding some way to forget your concerns? When you truly relax, you can let things sort of settle in your mind like sediment in a glass of diner water; wax in the dormroom stoner's lava lamp; the Jell-O and creamy stuff in that "Jell-O 1-2-3" stuff they used to make. Everything can become a sort of distant (farcical) play, while you sit in the (mental) balcony. There, you know where your program is, who's running the spotlight, and what you think of all the actors.
The Sage's way of governing begins by
Emptying the heart of desires,
Filling the belly with food,
Weakening the ambitions,
Toughening the bones.
In this way, he will cause the people to remain without
knowledge and without desire, and prevent the
knowing ones from any ado.
Practice Non-Ado, and everything will be in order.
[The Sage]does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.
And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him.
As a student with a more-than-minumum courseload and the idea in your head that good grades matter, a social life is important, and college is a time to do new things and experience life, it isn't at all surprising that you end up being tugged in a million directions by school, work, friends, your own expectations, the sudden desire for your head to explode, and so forth. We become paralyzed by the choices we must make daily, unable to sleep for all the thoughts and concerns running through your head like drunken frat-boy streakers.
My advice has always been to slowly recede for a short period of time. Sit on your ass somehow, maybe reading a book, watching TV, or just humming circus music to yourself, and let it all wash over you. Know that the things that really matter will reveal themselves, albeit angry and slightly late, and all the bullshit will go grumbling on as mere background noise. Sit and listen to your friends bullshit each other, sit in a shady place and watch the coeds crisscross the campus, watch a squirrel hop around in your backyard awhile...anything that puts work and worry as far from your mind and motivation as possible.
Mayhap it is only a rationalization for laziness, but what is relaxation and calming the mind other than just finding some way to forget your concerns? When you truly relax, you can let things sort of settle in your mind like sediment in a glass of diner water; wax in the dormroom stoner's lava lamp; the Jell-O and creamy stuff in that "Jell-O 1-2-3" stuff they used to make. Everything can become a sort of distant (farcical) play, while you sit in the (mental) balcony. There, you know where your program is, who's running the spotlight, and what you think of all the actors.
The Sage's way of governing begins by
Emptying the heart of desires,
Filling the belly with food,
Weakening the ambitions,
Toughening the bones.
In this way, he will cause the people to remain without
knowledge and without desire, and prevent the
knowing ones from any ado.
Practice Non-Ado, and everything will be in order.
[The Sage]does his work, but sets no store by it.
He accomplishes his task, but does not dwell upon it.
And yet it is just because he does not dwell on it
That nobody can ever take it away from him.