Worthwhile

What do you have to do to justify your existence?  

Is it enough to merely awake and perform the usual human functions?  Or do you have to make the world a better place and leverage disruptive technologies or something like that in order to count as a human being?

I was raised by ambitious parents who inculcated in me the message that “You are what you do.”  Consequently, the less I do, the less I am.  And if I don’t do anything, then, well, I’m nothing.

Sartre made a similar point: since we’re condemned to be free, then we have no excuse for not being the person we want to be and the only way to do that is through one’s actions.  If I claim to be a poet, but never write poetry because I’m too busy making a living as a waiter, then I’m acting in bad faith, which is another of saying I’m just a poseur, a wannabe poet who isn’t a poet at all.

If I write a short essay every day, does that make me a writer?  Perhaps, but perhaps just a lazy one.

If I cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner, am I therefore a cook?  Maybe, but maybe just a hungry one.

When I do math, am I a mathematician?  When I philosophize, am I a philosopher?  When I waste time scrolling around the internet, I’m a loser, aren’t I?

If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem; not being anti-racist is racist, for sure.  But can’t a person be good enough simply by not being bad?

Think of all the things you didn’t do today: steal candy from a baby; start World War III; stick a piece of chewed gum underneath a table at the library.  Those ought to count for something, shouldn’t they?

Sure, I’m just taking up space on the planet, but it’s a nice little space, which is plenty enough for today, all right?

Napping

Most people think the know how to nap.  You lie down on a couch or bed and doze off, ideally in the middle of the day.

Sure.

But that’s not real napping.

Real napping happens when one is sitting up, in a chair, ideally while reading a book, especially a non-fiction book.

One minute, you’re learning about how the brain works or getting new information as to the causes of World War I.  The next, you’re drooling on yourself, dropping your book on the floor, and nodding off.

It takes some effort to develop this skill, but with practice, even the most restless person can succeed.  It helps to choose a book with really dense text; the fewer paragraph breaks, the better.  Research has shown that analytical philosophy, especially the works of Alfred North Whitehead, are particularly effective.

Another time-honored tip is to choose a chair that’s soft, has solid armrests, and allows you to put your feet up on an ottoman or coffee table.  That nearly-prone position might be considered cheating by some traditionalists, but as long as one doesn’t recline fully, even the International Society of Afternoon Nappers approves.

That’s another point, by the way: afternoon naps are fine, but represent only Junior Varsity level napping.  The truly accomplished napper naps throughout the day, even before lunch.

For guidance on napping, refer to my dog.  She manages to nap after breakfast, before lunch, after lunch, mid-afternoon, at teatime, before dinner, and right before bed.  That’s impressive!

Some might contend that such behavior is really just sleeping away the day, but again, as long as you’ve got a book on your lap, it counts as napping, and one need not worry that what’s really going on is incipient or extant depression.

After all, if I can nap four to six or even eight hours a day, what do I have to be depressed about?  A good question, to be sure; I think I’ll sleep on it.

Trinity

Pick your favorite trinity: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu.  Body, mind, and spirit.  Manny, Moe, and Jack.  

They’re all good, and perhaps, all essentially the same.  So, have at the one that works best for you and experience your own experience of each in your own divine way.

As for me, I’ll take the holy trinity of yoga, cycling, and pot as the central organizing principle for my life.  It’s yoga that feeds by spirit, cycling, for my body, and cannabis, for the mind.  

Alternately, you can correlate them with the three gunas, the energetic principles that give rise to the Universe, according to the Samkhya darshana, one of the six “orthodox” schools of Vedic philosophy.  These are rajas, the active, restless principle, tamas, the principle of inertia and solidity, and sattva, the principle of purity and light.  It’s the eternal interplay among these three that bring the Universe into existence and sustains it.

Cycling is rajas, pot is tamas, and yoga is sattva.  Bike-riding is active; weed-smoking is passive; and doing yoga purifies.  The combination of the three, emphasizing one over the other two depending on the situation, makes for a life that is full and fulfilling.  And plenty fun, too!

I’ve been doing yoga asana almost every day for more than 24 years now.  I’ve smoked (and eaten, sometimes) marijuana with some regularity (not every day, though!) since I was fifteen, half a century ago.  And I’ve ridden a bicycle pretty much every chance I’ve had (often on the way to or from a yoga class and also pretty often while being stoned) since I first learned to work a two-wheeler by careening down Ravencrest Road in the Pittsburgh suburb, O’Hara Township back in 1965.

So, no doubt I’ve had plenty of experience in all three, and it’s certain that I wouldn’t be who I am today without those experiences. 

Yoga, cycling and pot = me, myself, and I.