The lockdown journal: What's in a mango?
“When someone seeks, then it easily happens that his eyes see only the thing that he seeks, and he is able to find nothing, to take in nothing because he always thinks only about the thing he is seeking, because he has one goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: having a goal. But finding means: being free, being open, having no goal.”
- Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
I am a seeker of meaning. I worship at the altar of profundity. Everything has to have a deeper explanation for me. (What better example than this: I am writing this whole post explaining trying to impart meaning to a metaphorical mango! :P) If not, I am very dismissive of the experience--I ridicule it with names such as routine, mundane, commonplace. Today, contradicting this whole outlook, I will try to explain why meaninglessness isn't so bad. In other words, how you can find meaning in the meaningless :P
I was one of those kids who would always turn up to the dining table with a novel in hand. I would read throughout the meal and no conversation could disrupt my reading. My mother would inevitably be annoyed by this behavior, and tried to stop me from reading during mealtimes. She would tut at me in dismay: You have no idea what's on your plate! I might as well put some stones there, and you'd still grin away at Sherlock's dialogue and gobble it up. For once, put down that dratted book and pay attention what you're eating.
I never got what she meant. I'd pride myself on turning a routine meal into a different novel and think I was utilizing my time well. I've continued this habit for years in different forms. For instance, I'd read throughout my daily commute, and have no clue of what was going on outside. Even when I walked or exercised, I would read or listen to something. Another related habit I acquired was to always think ahead. Sample: As I open the fridge and look the first hint of a vegetable, I begin this process like an automaton: estimate the quantity...calculate for how long it'll last...think about when I need to order next. All these were productivity hacks from my perspective- how to get the best of my time. In software parlance, I was perhaps parallelizing or pipelining to increase my throughput.
Over the past weekend, I decided to eat a few mangoes that I'd ordered. Somehow, there was silence in my head as I did this. No other thoughts, no distractions. It felt like an indulgent sensory experience, eating that mango. I savored every bite. I felt the texture of the mango, the sweetness of it. I noticed how succulent and ripe it was, and how much I enjoyed eating it. That night I was reading Siddhartha, and there was a river that the protagonist arrives at. A river that the sages disdain because they think it is an illusion/Maya. A river that the tradespeople detest because they see it as an obstacle to getting to the city on the other side. And he contemplates, none of them see the river as it is. They are all seeking different things, and what they seek shapes their perspective.
It is then that I realized the other side to tunnel vision. We forget to live fully. To experience something just the way it is, devoid of all other perspectives. We merely exist, and not live, like Oscar Wilde says.
Maybe this is why my mother used to yell at me. Why my music teacher tells me to pay attention to what note I am singing rather than blindly following along. Why countless yoga practitioners begin by asking us to take inventory of our breath and our body. Why so many psychological wellness articles emphasize on mindfulness. Why many how-to guides tell us to live in the moment. Why people talk about putting away mobile phones in many scenarios.
Mind you, I am not against increased productivity or reading or whatever it is that you do to combat the mundane. I intend to merely highlight the duality that exists here. To point out that you can indeed enjoy something as routine as a hot shower, something as mundane as a morning walk without having a distraction, a parallel thread running in your head.
How you balance these two aspects--focus and awareness--is up to you. :)
I'd like to end this with a few lines from a blog post(The profundity in shallowness) that I'd read and admired ages ago, and that suddenly clicked into place as I wrote this article.
I was one of those kids who would always turn up to the dining table with a novel in hand. I would read throughout the meal and no conversation could disrupt my reading. My mother would inevitably be annoyed by this behavior, and tried to stop me from reading during mealtimes. She would tut at me in dismay: You have no idea what's on your plate! I might as well put some stones there, and you'd still grin away at Sherlock's dialogue and gobble it up. For once, put down that dratted book and pay attention what you're eating.
I never got what she meant. I'd pride myself on turning a routine meal into a different novel and think I was utilizing my time well. I've continued this habit for years in different forms. For instance, I'd read throughout my daily commute, and have no clue of what was going on outside. Even when I walked or exercised, I would read or listen to something. Another related habit I acquired was to always think ahead. Sample: As I open the fridge and look the first hint of a vegetable, I begin this process like an automaton: estimate the quantity...calculate for how long it'll last...think about when I need to order next. All these were productivity hacks from my perspective- how to get the best of my time. In software parlance, I was perhaps parallelizing or pipelining to increase my throughput.
Over the past weekend, I decided to eat a few mangoes that I'd ordered. Somehow, there was silence in my head as I did this. No other thoughts, no distractions. It felt like an indulgent sensory experience, eating that mango. I savored every bite. I felt the texture of the mango, the sweetness of it. I noticed how succulent and ripe it was, and how much I enjoyed eating it. That night I was reading Siddhartha, and there was a river that the protagonist arrives at. A river that the sages disdain because they think it is an illusion/Maya. A river that the tradespeople detest because they see it as an obstacle to getting to the city on the other side. And he contemplates, none of them see the river as it is. They are all seeking different things, and what they seek shapes their perspective.
It is then that I realized the other side to tunnel vision. We forget to live fully. To experience something just the way it is, devoid of all other perspectives. We merely exist, and not live, like Oscar Wilde says.
Maybe this is why my mother used to yell at me. Why my music teacher tells me to pay attention to what note I am singing rather than blindly following along. Why countless yoga practitioners begin by asking us to take inventory of our breath and our body. Why so many psychological wellness articles emphasize on mindfulness. Why many how-to guides tell us to live in the moment. Why people talk about putting away mobile phones in many scenarios.
Mind you, I am not against increased productivity or reading or whatever it is that you do to combat the mundane. I intend to merely highlight the duality that exists here. To point out that you can indeed enjoy something as routine as a hot shower, something as mundane as a morning walk without having a distraction, a parallel thread running in your head.
How you balance these two aspects--focus and awareness--is up to you. :)
I'd like to end this with a few lines from a blog post(The profundity in shallowness) that I'd read and admired ages ago, and that suddenly clicked into place as I wrote this article.
I find myself deliberating over the vicissitudes of the macrocosm that is “life” much, much less often. It feels a little shallow, but for once, it is nice to see more and think less, appreciate more and want less, immerse myself more and extract for myself less.
Helping me break out of my own obsession for meaning, this new tryst with shallowness feels profound.
P.S: I have decided to take this series on whatever path inspiration leads me to. Since I read plenty, most of my inspiration happens to come from something I've read recently. :)
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