Friday, October 07, 2005

More on Mindfulness

A recent post on mindfulness on Ibeth makes me think that I'm not the only one with issues in this direction. In Beth's post, she describes a dream where she sends herself a reminder to do something while in a meeting and thus is unable to ask someone a question because she hasn't been payhing attention.

In my own defense, lack of mindfulness aside, that sort of thing really doesn't happen to me. I have kind of a knack for being unmindful. I'm good at it. In Geometry class, I frequently confounded Coach Pleasants by turning around to talk to Jenny in the seat behind me, yet being able to call out the answer when he tried to embarass me by asking for it. (I have kind of a knack for Geometry, too.)

I'm finding my quest to be mindful sort of difficult. I feel like I don't know the rules.

1. If I'm eating lunch with a coworker, can I check my Blackberry while she's at the buffet? Please?

2. Do I have to be mindful all the time, or can I, say, write a blog post and watch this week's Boston Legal on the TIVO at the same time when I'm by myself in the morning because it feels good and it isn't hurting anybody and damn Betty White makes me chuckle?

3. What if I'm on the phone with Linguist Friend and he uses a word I don't know or vice versa? Our usual habit is to stop and discuss the word while one of us looks it up. I realize you don't want me at your parties now, but is that unmindful? Perhaps it's more mindful given the attention we are paying to our conversation? But it does get the topic off track...

4. OK, checking my blackberry during the sermon is obviously tacky as hell, but how about during Joys and Concerns? Can we call that civil disobediance?

5. Speaking of the TIVO, is fast-forwarding through the commercials unmindful? That sounds like a stupid question. But I have to think that if I had a TIVO remote for life, I would absolutely fast forward through CK telling me, starry-eyed, what Ann Coulter had to say last night, and that sounds like it would be against the rules, so I thought I'd check.

Lots to think about and puzzle over.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

growing brains are very malleable. You probably grew up doing two things at once and your brain is accustomed to it. Problem is, now you're stuck with it.
Actually, new research says the brain still grows as long as you are learning new things and using it. If you want to be able to concentrate on one thing, you're going to have to practice it.