Day 7: Even Harder than Math

A comment on my last post suggested this blog has changed since the first few posts. This was said in jest, but it makes me question what this blog is really about. It is about compelling myself to write every day, but what else?

To answer this I pick up from the last line of the previous post, which said something about remembering and forgetting. This is a line from someone much smarter and, more importantly, much wiser than me who said 'life is a game of remembering and forgetting'. And not to overstate things, but this is one of the truest things I've ever heard. This leads to the next question: what am I trying to remember that I continue to forget?

There are many answers to this, depending on the day, the time, my mood, etc. Right now it is to remember to enjoy this moment. This doesn't mean shirking all responsibility in favour of napping and watching t.v. It is both more serious and more profound than that. It means learning to be present in your life, and to enjoy each experience, at the moment it happens without falling into the easy trap of projecting ourselves into the future of where we want to be. It means learning to enjoy writing this silly little blog, independent of readership or commentary. It means finding the joy and embodied exuberance in hard work. It means enjoying whatever the present moment brings.

It is this experience of the present that allows understanding and appreciation of difficult times. It is hard to learn the lessons of life when you are constantly engaged in fantasy. This is not to say that being present is a panacea for all grief and heartache, or that fantasy isn't an important tool of the imagination. And disassociation is preferable in the most extreme situations. I am not a monk, nor have the inclination to try to follow that path so I wouldn't suggest being present in moments of exquisite pain and suffering. But perhaps being present in more moments would allow us to realize that we can experience joy and satisfaction in times and places we normally use to disconnect. Maybe I can find joy in the moments of working I used to dread. And if I can do that, maybe hard work becomes more than something to get through, and can become something to engage in.

And that is much harder than math.