I woke up this morning with an epiphany. These do not happen quite as often as I would like, so I always try to pay attention. This time, it was as clear as a bell:
You are living unconsciously.
The genesis of this whole concept has been twofold. On the more intellectual side, I have been reading Zen and Japanese Culture by Daisetz Suzuki, slowly wending my way now through Zen and Swordsmanship (obviously of interest) and how the swordsman is always presented with the most blunt of situations, life and death.
On the less intellectual side, it is me watching movies.
Not that there is anything wrong per se with me watching movies - but what I have found over the last few times is that if I am watching movies, I tend to eat - and drink a lot. Without really thinking about eating and drinking. It has happened enough over the last three or four weeks that it caused me to finally start thinking about it.
Why do I (over) eat or (over drink) when I am watching movies? In theory I am engaged in some activity (assuming that I like the movie), so it is not that. But I eat and drink? I am doing it unconsciously, to fill the time or my boredom. Or really just because I am not paying attention to what I am actually doing.
Suddenly, it clicked.
To live unconsciously is to live in a very real way, without questioning anything. It can look like a lot of different things, at least in my own experience: a daily schedule which over time turns into a daily rut you never question; doing things and yet doing other things along with them without thinking about what you are doing or why; even multi-tasking in which some things are done along with other things that are not done well because we have to do everything together and thus some things get done without thinking in order to get done.
Living unconsciously suddenly because a way that I lived through every day. Without thought really, just doing something - or multiple somethings - and then doing something else.
The question became, what is Conscious Living?
Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteI'd suppose that conscious living would entail getting off the couch. It would mean practicing skills you suck at an hate in order to improve yourself. It would mean prepping for tough times, testing yourself often, and not taking the easiest way out all the time.
I used to be able to do some of that once upon a time, long ago...
All true, Glen. It also involves realizing that you are living unconsciously, something I think a great many folk are not able or willing to do.
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