going to steps
Something of an update. I started writing this a few hours or maybe a day ago. Some of the things always come to me when I get a thing done and I get that inner feeling. The past few days I could not walk aa I usually do and this caused some depression and angst. I’m hooked on the feelings of the walk and then my restorative yoga practice being a certain way and finding that happiness when it is. When I cannot get that I start questioning things and then I think on the whole focus thing.
For whatever reason and I don’t know why I thought on a day spent elsewhere here. I guess one of the days I happily tromped around Phnom Kulen with my Khmer mom. She doesn’t speak English but we just go off together at the temple complexes and see them. The smile says it all to me.
So after an inordinate amount of time I decided to write on. Thus the following came about.
Some days it pays to focus on the thing I want doing. A few things come along and I figure it is just easier to look at what it is I want to do with the morning. The morning desire is to simply walk. To find a way to my body saying,
Good job!
I don’t step count or have any kind of gps tracking to see what I do. Those things stopped making me happy years ago. What I need now is my body telling me I have done what needs to be done. Sometimes I leave tired. Feel old. Well I am old so there’s no feeling but it’s this inside decay. This lack of desire. Until I get going. Then those days erupt in a pleasure sensation of walking, writing, doing.
Like today. I had to go back home so while that made me unhappy, I knew I would just go. Would reach the pleasure sensation. Just the knowing and feeling when I get home I will have done what I wanted.
It’s that way with a lot of things these days. I used to be trapped in the measurement and analysis and goals game. If I did not do what I thought was the goal I was not happy. No matter how I felt. It never mattered. I think this is terribly wrong and it means we all settle on apps that measure, count, time. In truth those things don’t matter. They never have. They just subject us to the whims and ideas of apps we want to track us. Remind us. Blame us gently. Or not. In some gamification we get balloons and ribbons when we succeed in some pedometer app. Nothing at all if we don’t measure up. It’s like a sullen failure. A mark. A dark stain on us.
And it’s not right.
So in all my practices I gave up on timing. On measurement. I gained a reflection. A silent acceptance. A desire to just do my practices for their sake. Not for what I gain or they give.
I realized sitting here for coffee this morning the walk today gave me back. It let me feel this certain sensation. This peace of mind and lightness of heart and soul.
My desire writing these things is not to tell you my way is right. Or wrong. It’s simply to say we spend our lives in a gloomy competition with clocks and calendars. We spend time and money on how our task lists integrate. How our reminders remind. What if none of it mattered?
Guess what?
It doesn’t. Your life goes merrily along without any of that crap. You do the things and have the moments to cherish or wait to end. Or both.
Take it.