Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?
1) I'm always experimenting!
Over the last few months I've tried several new or new-again things: Qi Gong, body scrubs and oils, new perfumes, Sea Moss Gel, paring down work hours and TV consumption, playing a video game, getting back into dream work, and a few new things in my writing, probably not detectable to anyone but me. 🙂
In Buddhist Lojong teachings, there's a directive: Don't be predictable. I see this as something to ask one's self rather than a way to be seen in the eyes of others. How are my thoughts feeling? Do they surprise me? Some of the most radical-thinking people I've met have seemed very boring from the outside. ; )
I might think of myself as someone (at least) intellectually adventurous and explorative, but that in itself may be a complacent groove.
So one of best prescriptions for this, outside of feedback from trusted friends, is reading--especially fiction. Though it may take a while, I'll eventually pick up a book I know will challenge some aspect of my biases, either by subject matter I usually avoid, or a background I know little about. Anti-escapism.
I'm not quite anti-fragile like these young women, though. 🙂
Right now, the book is The Three-Body Problem. Like Babel (which I loved) or other books that get wildly popular super fast, I waited until this was no longer the hottest thing to pick it up. It deals with themes of censorship and authoritarian control, lack of privacy and suspicion of others as well as science in times of great social engineering by powers-that-be.
I consider these things a lot already, so we'll see.
The plan is to follow it with My Brilliant Friend, which has been on my list for several years. I have no idea why I haven't read this, but maybe when a book comes up on list after list as one of the greatest books of all time, one knows there's something there that could be life-changing.
2) Constants along with my experimentalism. I won't be in therapy forever, but have been for quite a while. Meditation matters to me and hopefully something that will stay throughout life. I hope to become more disciplined with diet, and that my ethical sensibilities will become more ingrained over time, therefore take conscious less effort. These are either several things or one thing, depending on how one looks at it.
And obviously I've just spotlighted reading. 🙂 Reading is a constant for me and for most of us. I'm far more comfortable writing than speaking, as I've mentioned before, and probably hear text louder than human voices as well.
One balance that isn't too easy at times, is to even on WordPress, follow writers who have different outlooks than mine, so long as they are well-considered, respectful and curious-minded. It seems to be a good medium for that, since most filter toward longer-form and more nuanced content... to be a little closer to reality and daily-life. There have been times someone has written something that irked me enough to stop reading them for a while, but I usually come back once I've examined my own reactions unless it's something flat-out offensive.
It's hard not to be affected by the reality-distortion effect of our current media and political climate, which can program automatic responses to categories of people in us, so I search high and low for people who defy typecasting.
Recently I had an image of my life as a relay race type game where one has a little ladle of some sort and scoops up water, or maybe a flame, then has to get that element to a certain destination while thwarting forces beset one all around (of course, this features in Zelda in various places, lol). When I mentioned this to my son, he said "And sometimes you just put it out because you forget you're carrying it."
Protecting a precious flame takes a lot of separate strategies, but also too, a little luck. One hopes to be able to pass on more than embers of aliveness and joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment