Respite

[AFK]

We look so hard that we forget where we are.
There is merit in a greater understanding.
But when we forsake our future for futile focus,
how much do we gain?

How bout making some tea from those tea leaves?
Go sit on your porch, stoop, whatever, and just fucking forget about everything for awhile.
Tune out, and tune in.

Silence can be very enlightening. 

[Cramulus]

everything in moderation.

The tea you mention is a good chaser. 

[AFK]

no doubt.

In my professional life I have to always be constantly reading into things and looking for patterns, trends, reasons, etc.

And so I've got this time off this week.

And so I found myself yesterday thinking so hard about how I should spend my time, what should I do, how to maximize the time off.

I realized, I was focusing too much and that I should just let go and just be for a few days.  do whatever feels right.

[LMNO]

When I was in Mexico, there were no TVs, no 'Net access, and no cell phone reception.

Just me, the baja coast, my family, and bottles of wine, beer, and tequila.



It was incredibly relaxing just sitting, and staring off into the distance.

[Cramulus]

I hear ya Rev, especially about focusing SO HARD on what I "should" be doing with my downtime.

For me, I think it's healthy to try to focus on being action oriented and making "progress" - because I have a tendency to go into zombie autopilot mode with my days off. Just sort of cruise the web, play video games, shoot the shit, and all of the sudden it's Monday and I didn't really feel like I spent my time well.

I had a major personal revelation regarding this last year. I identified this state (which I call the Void), which is basically my robot. When I'm in the Void, I'll eat ramen noodles rather than walking to the corner store to pick up food. I'll watch entire commercial breaks because I'm too lazy to surf. I'll check my e-mail, then the message boards I read, then my e-mail, then the message boards I read, back and forth, with no direction or energy. I can pass hours just idling. When I try to remember what I was doing during that time I have a foggy spot. There was little stress, but it wasn't really that entertaining.

And after I've had a lot of GO GO GO time, that idling is reallly good. But I'm just now rising out of a rut I recently realized I've been in for months. And I want to escape all that voidtime.

But that's all just me. I applaud your tea leaves and your just being.

[Darth Cupcake]

Well, see, that's the thing--there's Void, as you put it, and there's RWHN's just being.

Doing the whole staring at commercial breaks, eating ramen, surfing the net aimlessly thing doesn't really do anything FOR you. It doesn't do anything AGAINST you, either, but you do nothing in the end, as you covered, Cram.

On the other hand, taking a cup of tea and taking a bath, or sitting outside, or just laying out in the grass or something... That's actually unwinding you. Because even when you're mindlessly disengaged from things like commercial breaks and the intertrucks, you're still running your mind, and you're not actually making any progress on detoxing, as it were. Sure, you're not exerting yourself, but you're not giving yourself a break either.

At least, this is how it works for me. I can spend hours in front of a computer or TV, but when I'm done, I don't feel any more relaxed. Whereas an hour with a cup of tea at the beach, chilling on the jetty, listening to the waves and watching the world go by... That's so freaking good. Highly renewing.

Of course, I might be pulling shit out of my ass right now in regards to what RWHN was going for or how other people see it/take it, but so it goes.

[AFK]

I don't know.  It was something I just felt in the moment.  But I think it applies to many situations.  My downtime is just once scenario.  And even that situation is different for different people.  My wife likes to garden.  To her, sticking her hands in soil is mindless, and she can tune out while doing that.  For me, sometimes it's writing, sometime's it's music, sometime's it's just sitting and staring at nothing.

But as far as my OP.  It was a thought about wanting so badly to find meaning in the universe that you forget to be you.  Sort of, like BIP to the extreme, if you'll pardon the meme.

So you realized that it is really easy to get mired in a mundane existence, so you strike out to find meaning elsewhere.  This idea, of course is good and comendable.  But, there's the trap of carrying it too far, to look for depth and meaning everywhere.  To get so focused on this quest, that you end up forgetting yourself anyway. 

So, instead of studying the tea leaves so feverntly, just make some tea out of them and relax for a bit.  Just to kind of keep your bearings and to keep grounded. 

[Darth Cupcake]

I love tea so much.

I think I shall go make some now.

[PeregrineBF]

Imperial Gunpowder is a reasonably good tea.

[faust]

I hear ya Rev, especially about focusing SO HARD on what I "should" be doing with my downtime.

For me, I think it's healthy to try to focus on being action oriented and making "progress" - because I have a tendency to go into zombie autopilot mode with my days off. Just sort of cruise the web, play video games, shoot the shit, and all of the sudden it's Monday and I didn't really feel like I spent my time well.

I had a major personal revelation regarding this last year. I identified this state (which I call the Void), which is basically my robot. When I'm in the Void, I'll eat ramen noodles rather than walking to the corner store to pick up food. I'll watch entire commercial breaks because I'm too lazy to surf. I'll check my e-mail, then the message boards I read, then my e-mail, then the message boards I read, back and forth, with no direction or energy. I can pass hours just idling. When I try to remember what I was doing during that time I have a foggy spot. There was little stress, but it wasn't really that entertaining.

And after I've had a lot of GO GO GO time, that idling is reallly good. But I'm just now rising out of a rut I recently realized I've been in for months. And I want to escape all that voidtime.

But that's all just me. I applaud your tea leaves and your just being.

While I was doing security on seventy hour weeks this paralysis took up all my free time too. The internet is not relaxing. What I used to do to just let go of everything was to go back to the countryside and stay with my mother, if I felt like it I would go for walks and stuff, if I didn't I would sit in the back garden and read or talk to someone.
Playing games and fucking about online keeps you in a strange hazy concentration mode, and makes me feel like shit after a day or two.

[Darth Cupcake]

I would just like to say that last night when I got home, I made a giant mug of tea with loads of honey (I'm a heathen like that), got into comfy clothes and lay around on my bed with noise-canceling headphones on listening to music.

It was absolutely fabulous.

I was ten minutes early to work this morning and I feel great. Yay for respite!

I hope your respite is kicking ass, RWHN.

[AFK]

After I take care of some business this morning, I'm going into the basement, plugging in my guitar, crank it up to 10, and "relax" in a bath of feedback and distortion.  Perhaps I will record it as well. 

[LMNO]

Please do.

[AFK]

Please do.

Yeah, so I did.  Except, MySpace won't allow me to upload a 15 minute song to my site.  I will have to upload it somewhere else over the weekend. 

[Pope Lecherous]

Respite?  What the fuck is a RESPITE?  Where's my motherfuckin respite? Drink some fuckin tea with some honey in it?  There's a fuckin war going on right now. Motherfuckers are dying and shit.  Yea when i go home on leave it's the same shit, and the same stupid questions?  You ever seen a dead body?  How many people did you kill? etc.  People congratulating me for my service.  Congratulate your garbage man, cuz he's doin it too.  All the shit you dont wanna do. cuz you need a respite from: Wake up, do your office work, go home, and be fuckin fat and nasty.  My favorites are the hard-asses who are talking about how they'd love to be in the military and kill hadjis and towel heads and rag-heads and the sand-niggers, you ignorant fucks.  I'd love to kill so-and-so.  Take a life, talk to me.  Shoot someone, talk to me.  Kill someone with a knife, talk to me. 

All these hard-asses for all they're worth would cry like little bitches.  Make it through your day where you're so slick u play solitaire, post witty shit online, make sure you can maintain your SANITY, just escape.  Escape the evil guy, and the hum-drum and those intellectually inferior to your Goddess filled brain housing group.

So go to the day spa and get those gay little cucumbers on your eyes so u can get some U-Time and unwind.  OR develop yourself a combat mindset or a tactical mindset.  The only the thing that will bother you at that point will be the people who still whine like you people do right now. Don't impose your views, yea haha Bullshit. Morality is one big GREY blob, right?  There's no right and wrong lifestyle.  I'm telling you what you are doing is wrong.  What i'm doing is right.  Yea i said it.  Some dumbass sitting at his computer screen right now is thinking.  WELL that is just your opinion, buddy! Who are you to say this and that.  Well it's fucking me and I'm Discordian.

 
So skate all you can. Get your break from a break. Cuz in reality when you make it home you're safe from Bill Lumbergh.