If you like brittle figs you are a fragile Newton...

I wonder and ponder and think and remember and recall as I silently and savagely recollect and sing about how I won the 1958 world series then stepped in dog doo that was so old it had turned white as a coal cellar ghost and I cried tears of bitter anguish as I thought of all the brave men who gave their warm and levonic lives jumping into volcanoes as termites jump into their spiraling mounds to investigate each other as they often do when the leaves of the salamander tree become brittle as a fig and twice as round and also what's for dessert.

I usually think about the past... loved ones... I get hung up on the meaning of things... conversations, mosquitos,relationships.... I am always looking for the meaning in everything. It kind of drives me nuts, but it's how I'm hard wired...

I think about time.

Sorry I never got a chance to read the body of your journal.  My head was just not into going anywhere deep when I saw it.

But to answer you question ... nothing, I just turn everything off and deal with what I see in front of me.  I turn off the past and the future, it is all about the now.  I've been a people watcher all my life and have observed people in many places and situations.  I find it especially interesting to see people navigate new circumstances out of their comfort zone, as in traveling and how they resolve their concerns.  How they read signs or don't and deal with lines or operate unfamiliar devices and solve their immediate problems.  I spend a lot of time sitting and waiting in doctors offices, hospital waiting rooms, and when I occasionally work.  I can sit for hours, just staring into space, silent for long periods.  I admit that I refined this ability during my chemo sessions, when all I did was sit in a hospital bed for 5 to 6 days straight sucking up the juice 24 hours a day. days in a row for several months in a row.  The 10 day round during my stem cell transplant was especially hard, but that was for different reasons.  But I have learned how to alter the passing of time, being inert, yet fully aware.

I don't formally know what meditation is, but I guess that is has a lot to do with focusing on the present, removing all other thoughts that deal with the past and the future and just being.

I'll share a couple of things learned from my observations.  One is that no one looks up anymore.  No one looks up at the sky, in wonder or joy, just when it rains or snows.  And then the sky is obscured and you can't see it.  The other thing is that no one can sit and do nothing anymore.  Everyone is playing with their phones, doesn't matter what the age.  No one stops and disconnects and exhales anymore.  I look around and everyone is doing something but me.  I'm beginning to feel that a) no one knows how to disconnect anymore, at least without chemicals, and b) I'm beginning to think people are afraid to disconnect and have nothing to do and have unplanned for time on their hands.  Do not confuse with this with spontaneity, I'm talking about being alone with yourself and being comfortable with yourself, when you have absolutely nothing to do but wait for periods of time to pass.

Looking back at what I wrote, I'll change my statement of nothing and say that I play with time and change its speeds to suit my present needs, if any.

Hope this made some sense to someone.  I never know anymore. 

Very compelling reading, OV.

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