[The Cogitator apologizes for not posting recently. He was called away unexpectedly on personal business.]
Have you ever tried intentionally to slow down your actions and your thoughts? If not, you might want to give it try. Set aside ten minutes to do everything much more slowly than you normally do. Write a few lines, or copy them from a book or magazine, very slowly, paying careful attention to each letter as you write, making it as perfect as possible. Or make yourself a sandwich, paying the closest attention to every detail of the process, from removing the bread from its packaging to laying the meats or fillings on the bread, to positioning the finished sandwich on the plate. Or do a home repair with the same attentiveness; or tend your garden, paint a picture, pay your bills, dust the furniture, all with the same deliberate attentiveness.
At first this will annoy you. We are so harried that we want to get tasks done quickly and move on. But what do we move on to? More tasks, or rest from doing tasks. Surely there is more to life than rushing through tasks and resting from tasks! There will always be more tasks than you can accomplish, and there will never be enough time to rest. When do we get to the “something more”?
If you can stick with the practice of slowing down your thinking and acting, you may come upon the secret of “something more”: everything we do becomes “something more” when we pay attention to it. This is the hidden origin of all rites and rituals. Surrounding an event with “extraordinary” speeches, music, and practices is an attempt to focus our attention so that the “something more” that is always right at hand can come into our heightened awareness. For it is not the nature of an activity that ennobles it, but the quality of attention we bring to it.
This may seem too simple to make sense to us harried moderns.
Don’t let that stop you.
Nice to have you back. I’ve been doing this lately, but it of course fades. Good to have a reminder. I try to think of myself as a 90 year old man- each step or action is slow and deliberate. There’s no need to get from point A to point B quickly. All points are point A.
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