Last night I played Wii bowling with the house hunk, my daughter and her SO. I was doing pretty good. And then...The dog started chasing her tail. First to the right. Then to the left. Right. Left. Very difficult to bowl when the dog's chasing her tail. BTW, I bowled 181 that game.
That's pretty much how life is these days. It's not so much that I'm chasing my tail... but everyone around me is. That can be distracting, you know? In our wild world it's harder and harder to take time to just think.
Jane and I had a discussion about waiting rooms (doctor's waiting rooms to be specific). She was of the opinion the time spent there was wasted. I think it might be "found" time. Time to read a book. Or time to think. Or even time to dream.
Of all the things from my childhood, I miss the ability to daydream the most. It was an acceptable past time back then.
"Whatcha doin', Anny?"
"Just thinkin'."
And then your friend would plop down beside you and you'd spend time thinking. Or imagining wonderful, amazing things. Now if a kid sits around thinking, his parents haul him off to a therapist because obviously he must have something wrong with him. Original thoughts might be dangerous. Goodness knows there aren't very many of them floating around.
I wonder if life on the planet would be different if we all had to spend two hours a day on recreational thinking. No distractions. Just silence and thought. Think about it! Shut down everything from noon until two pm everyday and dedicate that time to thinking.
Sure, some people would sleep, but that's okay. That's just another way of thinking. Meditation. Being one with the mattress. Yeah. I could go for that.
I bet there would be people who couldn't sit still that long. You know those women who just can't relax. They'd be thinking about the laundry or dishes or some other bit of work that needed to be done. Those people are born tail chasers.
When I was a kid we spent about half an hour everyday on our knees next to the bed. We were supposed to be talking to God. Of course, that wasn't always the case. Some people did but others thought about ways to make their vegetables grow bigger or how to get that ding out of the front fender. Whatever they were thinking about it was quiet time. More importantly, it was sanctioned quiet time.
One of the major problems people deal with in this country is a whole slew of sleep disorders. I wonder if thirty minutes of meditation before bed would alleviate some of those problems.
What do you think? Would life improve if we just stopped chasing our tails?
anny
