Relative Something

Yesterday afternoon, Cyndie took me along on a visit to the stables where she has been helping a friend look after horses. It was an absolutely beautiful autumn day that defied the month of October with temperatures in the 80s. The unseasonable heat seemed to put the horses in a bit of an ornery mood. The dryness of the fall minimizes the amount of green turf available for grazing, so they have plenty of excuse to feel ornery.

I quickly became reminded of my limited experience around horses, especially groups of them. Our visit served to be a very clear demonstration for me of the simple lesson that is the cornerstone of the process Cyndie is learning: being fully conscious of yourself when interacting with horses, and being fully aware of the present moment. Horses are not satisfied with anything less.

I was describing to Cyndie how awkward I felt, trying to temper my normal quirkiness. I tend to react spontaneously, often with quick movements. I even used the word, “unconscious” to describe my usual mode of behavior. I didn’t want to startle the horses, so I had to control my urge to make unintentional movements. It is a great exercise for me, both mentally and physically.

We tossed out some hay and filled water troughs. Then Cyndie moved two horses out of the hot sun and into the coolness of the stable. Twice I witnessed how the animals approach Cyndie and make themselves heard. She said one horse was angry there wasn’t anything to eat. Even I could read his message. His direct approach. The way he stomped his feet. He was definitely telling her how he felt.

The second time was just as we were getting back in the car to leave. A horse made a very obvious and deliberate effort to hustle up to the fence by the car. I asked Cyndie if he wanted to tell her something. She walked over to the fence. I saw Cyndie bend over and look at his legs. It was quite something to witness, because it really did look like a conversation. And then, as soon as it was clear she got the message, he headed off to whatever he was doing before, leaving her standing alone at the fence.

Cyndie said that he had a sore on his leg. I asked how she knew to look at his leg and she said, “Because he showed it to me. He pointed at it with his other foot.” I don’t know what I was looking at, but I missed that message altogether. It did look very much like a conversation, as a whole, however.

Her stint in Boston is going to feel like a very long time to me, I think.

I believe that our minds do productive work while our bodies sleep. Often, the dream we recall when we wake up is so bizarre that whatever meaning it might hold for us is disguised beyond recognition. Yesterday morning, I awoke to a very rare occasion of having had the same situation appear in two different dreams, one right after the other. I’ve not thoroughly deciphered all the possible messages for me in these dreams, but I’ve been given a pretty clear pair of situations from which to ponder a meaning.

In both dreams I was playing soccer. For some reason, I have better recall of the first dream, where I was out wide to the left of the goal, and my teammates repeatedly moved the ball out to me for a shot. The ball kept coming to my left foot. Three different times it happened. Each time I was hoping for it to arrive for a big shot with my dominant right foot. I found myself off balance to react well with my left, because I was looking for it to be on my right. I finally made a weak attempt with my left foot and the ball slowly rolled toward a crowd of players and then, to my surprise,  somehow it squeaked into the very corner edge of the net for a goal.

I woke up just enough to realize my dream, then turned over and went back to sleep. Then it happened again. All I remember of this dream was that the ball came to my left foot when I wanted it on my right. I begrudgingly kicked a weak shot with my left anyway. It went IN!

When my alarm went off, the thought that was on my mind was the remarkable fact that I had two different dreams about the same thing.

I could easily interpret this lesson literally and practice being more prepared to use my left foot, and just take the shot whether it’s strong or not. It could also be symbolic of many other things for me.

I don’t usually put a lot of analytical effort into interpreting my dreams. I tend to let them influence me subconsciously. It seems the most congruent match for the oblique, bizarre image-stories that are broadcast in my noggin at night. That might explain some of the slow evolutionary progress I am able to demonstrate thus far in my life.

The message of these dreams appears much less complicated. I am inspired to take a LOT of shots with my left foot at my next morning futsal games on Friday. If I score a lot of unexpected goals, you can expect to hear more from me on this subject.

What is it about me that leads me to interrupt the thought I am typing to go back to the first word of the sentence and correct the capitalization, instead of forging ahead with the thought and returning later to make such corrections? Probably the same thing that causes me to want to clean the driveway of snow with finishing caliber cleanliness on each pass as I go, instead of not bothering over the scattering of missed spots until after the bulk of the snow has been removed in a first pass.

What is it that prevents me from shutting down applications and rebooting my computer, even though my practice of leaving my 3 primary tabs open and the internet browser application running for days on end eventually leads to an increasingly inconvenient lag time with repeated pauses of the classic Mac spinning beach ball icon? Probably the same thing that leads me to continue to wander the upstairs hallway in complete darkness at night even after I have written about the practice and revealed the lack of any reason not to turn on a light.

What is it that would cause me to, out of the blue, after years of never missing, file a monthly bill without taking any action to actually pay it? Probably the same thing that led me to the practice of placing my daily vitamin on the counter in the morning and purposely taking notice of it once or twice before finally picking it up and swallowing it.

I don’t mind that my mind is wasting away in a terrible way, but it is something of a waste to have a terrible mind that undermines things my mind is trying to mind.

There is something right around the corner and you can just sense that it will influence your otherwise uneventful experience of late. But there is no corner. Why do we say things like, “The corner of my mind?” Metaphoric corners are rolling around us all the time. The word “corner” looks just fine until you focus on the word “corn” and then you get that strange feeling that it doesn’t look like a correctly spelled word at all. How is it that our mind can suddenly see a group of characters of the alphabet in such a way that the word formed looks totally nonsensical? I have found myself pausing in disbelief at the word, “then” as if there were no way it could possibly be a word, even though logic led me to carry on as if it must be legitimate. This might explain why I have neglected to master a second language all these years. I can hardly maintain order in my head with the words of the language I grew up speaking.

Any credit for understanding the English language should go to my ears and the blessing of having parents who spoke properly. When rules of grammar were being taught in grade school, I quickly discovered that the correct answer was simply the one that sounded right to me. Unfortunately, that means I didn’t ever really memorize the actual rules of grammar. That will be visible in my writing style, where I often opt for choosing to lay out a sentence in a manner that reflects how it sounds to me when spoken, which sometimes turns out to be grammatically incorrect.

I still find myself occasionally choosing to follow a few grammar rules that result in written sentences sounding different than the way I would actually say things, but it is because there are times when doing so just reads better. I credit that to the reading I do and how I ‘hear’ the words written by professional journalists. I don’t know if everyone ‘listens’ to the words and sentences they read in their mind to the same extent that I do. (I think it makes me a slower reader.) I have a tendency to mimic what I see and hear, for better or worse. My writing will tend to reflect the writing of others that appeal to me.

When I edit, I don’t always know what is correct for a given sentence, but I usually sense when it just doesn’t sound right. I credit my parents for the way they spoke and also for their habit of having a radio or television on where I heard broadcasts of WCCO and dialects that most closely matched what I found to read in published works. I have no idea what led me to start thinking about things like corners of a mind or why I see things from a somewhat skewed vantage point at times. I guess it’s just a relative point of view. Relative to something.

Fun for Friday. First, find four faces from forever for fresh friendship flavored familiarity. Freely flail five flexed fingers feigning frightful fits filled full from fluttering fanaticism. Fraternize freely foisted floundering fists fixed fruitfully following flowing flowers from fall festivals forever.

Forget it.

Have you ever noticed how letters and numbers can hold the impression of a specific color in your mind? For me, the letter F looks like this:

After spending many adult hours looking at blocks and magnetic boards of letters and numbers with my infant children as we exercised their amazing minds to learn, it struck me why it would be logical to picture these as associated with a certain color. I have taken a few informal polls to learn the variety of color associations friends have for letters and numbers. I’m of a mind that with enough research we could probably identify which kids played with the same devices in their formative years based on their color associations.

However, there are a few situations that complicate it. New things come along to disrupt our initial associations. One in particular that impacted me was a fascination I developed later in my childhood with color-by-number drawings. That re-oriented my color/number associations, for sure.

If you think about it, one of the most significant things to mess with our early impressions developed of colors of letters must be learning to read books. Every dang letter suddenly becomes black. Just plain black. Isn’t that just packed full of symbolism for a variety of situations related to moving from the colors of our innocence to the structure of life as an adult?

I can’t count the number of times that I have seen stories of individuals who have made unbelievable recovery from physical trauma through their tenacious and dogged determination to endure endless hours of rehabilitation. I have much more respect for all their accomplishments now that I discover I can’t seem to tolerate even one session of focused exercise to recover a torn hamstring muscle.

I don’t understand what it is about me, but even though the tasks are incredibly simple and I know it is bound to help speed my return to the activity I crave, I can’t seem to muster the mental tenacity to pull off the suggested regimen of exercise in more than occasional, light intensity attempts. I am my own worst enemy.

I am free to exercise within the full range of pain-free motion, but need to avoid ballistic movement of quick bursts or starts and stops. The good news is that cycling would be just the type of exercise that I am able to do right now. Unfortunately, I am not a great fan of early springtime riding. I deserve to get over that mental hurdle, I know.

The simple exercises are painful to me in a mental way. The level of strain on muscle is so minimal that I get bored very quick. It is hard to feel that the muscle is even working, so multiple repetitions are what is required to tire the muscle. BOOOOORRRIIIIIIIINNGG!

Actually, my whining here is really just revealing that I am bummed out over the realization that I discovered I probably am not far enough along in healing to get back to my regular sports activity this week, like I had previously hoped. When my boredom over the lame exercise got to be too much yesterday, I tried running around in the house a little bit. Since that felt entirely pain-free, I got cocky and hopped a couple of stairs to quickly discover why it is prescribed to avoid ballistic moves. Ouch. Back to the wimpy, repetitive movements of the leg. Whooppee! I get to pull myself along forward on a rolling chair. I get to bend my knee and stretch the elastic band taut with my foot and slowly allow it to return. Thrilling, I tell you!

I am far from proud of my accomplishments in this area. Those who have spent years doing the smallest of exercises for days on end to regain their mobility, for maybe just a small portion of their former lives, are stronger than I ever imagined. Even though they are always impressive stories to learn about, such accomplishments now leave me awestruck over the implications of what significant achievements they truly are.

Sometimes I find myself surprised by the dichotomies I come to realize about myself. I don’t know why it should surprise me. I have been known to express a belief that all things are balanced with a polar opposite, in one way or another. When I become aware of it within my own personality or behavior, why does it surprise me? Go figure. As I write this, I am feeling a new awareness about the different ways I actually do live in the moment, regardless my more obvious pattern of usually allowing myself to be more focused on either my past, or the future.

One easily recognizable aspect of this part of me which resides in the moment, is related to my writing. I really struggle to comfortably write for publication deadlines that are months or years into the future. Heck, even emails leave my computer with me wanting them to be read as fast as they arrive at their destination. It’s not that I produce anything that is particularly time sensitive; no, it’s more that my having created some message at a particular moment in time is most closely associated with my mind at that moment. Maybe that reveals something about me. Does my mind really change all that much that the things I write about might not stand the test of time? Probably not. I’ll rack that one up to the possibility of a lack of confidence.

Yesterday, I spent some time engaged in projects in the garage that likely spawned some of the thinking about how I behave more in the moment than I am aware. I make all these attempts, year after year, to arrange things in an organized manner to facilitate a logical and efficient future use. All for naught. For the most part, I don’t retain any functional recollection of the places I store things, or for that matter, even remember what the things are that I have. When I set about tending to some chore, I take on whatever task appears before me with whatever tool I can locate in the moment. Rarely, if ever, do I benefit from some plan I had in mind at some motivated, constructive phase of my past.

So, in a way, I am both organized, and randomly spontaneous all at the same time.

Our incredible brain machine is on my mind. Thinking about our thinking can get pretty tricky and sort of convoluted. It’s like getting in an argument with someone you live with and instead of arguing about the original point that triggered the debate, you find yourself fighting over the mechanics of the argument. Or like trying to make up a game in the neighborhood and spending the whole time arguing over what the rules will be and never getting around to actually playing the game.

There is an article from June of 2008 in The New Yorker that I was pointed to online. Fascinating. It is 8 pages long, so if you are interested in reading it, and I highly recommend it, then be prepared to sit down and read a chapter of a book. It is worth it. Among very many things covered in the article, there is a reference to how our minds are able to assemble an image from incomplete data. We do it unconsciously. I expect everyone, including myself, takes this for granted, but think about it! The author uses the example of viewing a dog through a picket fence where our eyes are only able to perceive separated slices of the animal, yet our mind is able to conjure a fully intact dog and visualize what the animal looks like. Our brain processes it for us without needing to think about it.

I am reminded of a scene from the documentary/drama “What the Bleep!?: Down the Rabbit Hole” where they claim the first time a native tribe witnessed an ocean-crossing vessel on their horizon of the sea, they didn’t “see” it because they had no reference of what it could be, so it just didn’t compute. I found it hard to accept at the time, but now I can understand what was being portrayed. Having no concept of what that ship was, no reference of having stood on one or walked around one to know how big it is, that image on the horizon must have made no sense at all. The mind couldn’t process that unconscious step of forming the image.

At the same time, it occurs to me that our minds are pretty adept at conjuring up threats that don’t actually exist. Many of the fears and phobias our mind conjures up are figments of imagination. The monster under the bed or the boogie man in the darkness. The spinning view of vertigo for someone uncomfortable with heights. Or, as the article graphically presents, the itching that has no source.

Also from the article, consider how the multitude of sensors of our skin can ignore the collar on our neck all day long, but when a thread pokes out of the tag, it has us scratching and fussing to fix it. The skin works with the brain. But sometimes, as the article reveals, the brain takes initiative to control without bothering to get input from the skin.

When we are adept enough, or introspective enough, it is a spectacular refinement to unravel the unconscious acrobatics that occur in our minds and harness the power for personal gain: optimal health of mind, body, and spirit. You might even call it, achieving a bit of enlightenment.

Expand your awareness. Think about it!

Happy September!

Do not expect to find any answers in this post. But feel free to wallow in questions that hold little in the way of purpose…

Why aren’t there weeds in the woods?

Is it possible to yawn during an angry tantrum?

Would rock ‘n’ roll music have evolved if the only instruments that existed to this day were the same ones used in classical orchestral music?

Courtesy my friend David P.: Someday, will there be an implant that allows humans to capture an image that we see through our eyes so we can take pictures without having to dig out our camera?

How would your performance at your day job be affected by having a stadium of 80,000 people watching you and the job limited to 90 minutes to complete, while the spectators cheered and jeered?

How come we still call professional sports, “sport”, when it’s become so much like work for the millionaires participating in it?

How does Lindsey Buckingham, guitarist/singer with the band Fleetwood Mac, elicit all those notes and sounds out of his guitars with that finger picking style at the speeds he does?

Do scientists get embarrassed to release reports of studies they have done that come to conclusions that are absolutely common sense obvious to all the rest of us?

Is anyone surprised when damages from disasters reach higher dollar amounts than ever before?

What if people bought artist’s work while they are still alive instead of waiting until they die?

What would it be like if everyone always smiled a genuine smile, all the time – even when it didn’t feel genuine?

Is it possible to look deeply into someone’s eyes and not really see them?

What would it be like if you had to teach someone how to be you and describe how and why you do everything the way you do?

Being *this* John W. Hays is a lot like being different than just being the same as what it would be like if I were being unlike how it is when I become aware I am being more like what it’s like when I am being like what all the other John W. Hays named individuals would be like were they to suddenly take stock in what being *this* John W. Hays would be like in any other shoes than mine, if you know what I mean.

Finally, we are being blessed by the first enchanting rumbles of thunder as spring rotates into place here in my homeland. I can’t wait to find out if we will enjoy any dramatic weather in Nepal in April. I am preparing for anything and everything. If I can muster the mysterious power of mental influence, I will see what I can bring about by dwelling on nothing too serious or uncomfortable.  I’ve really been wondering lately about the power of influence of our minds.

Recently, the thought passed through my mind that I did not suffer a cold this winter. I let that thought slip by unspoken, admittedly due to a superstition that saying something–acknowledging it–would lead to, …well, …you know: getting a cold! Why, then, did I suddenly let the words fly when the thought came to me a second time in the car the other night?  I had no conscious reason for these thoughts in the first place, nor any explanation for why I ended up saying it out loud.

I woke up Sunday morning with a sore throat that had me feeling just a bit off and by the evening was struggling with a tickle in my throat and stuffiness in my nose that really hassled my attempts to fall asleep. It continued to progress to an overall feeling of cruddiness with stinging eyes that have me just wanting to snuggle under the covers and sleep for days. So, which came first here, the chicken or the egg?

Is it possible that deep within my essence I sensed what was coming, long before my mind became fully aware? My body knew what was happening before my mind did? That would explain why the thoughts seemed so out of context to me. Or is the onset of illness simply a result of me thinking about it and my body following the path I was paving? If the mind can control the body, I’m sure not displaying the necessary discipline to redirect this now. All day I’ve been floundering back and forth with trying to talk myself, right-quick, back to optimal health and then whimpering that I want to just allow myself to feel all the yuck and stay in bed! My poor body seems to be following both messages equally well and it is no wonder I feel so crazy sometimes.

I’m using this as a reminder to be sure to pack as many little medicine cabinet comforts, the ones I rarely-if-ever turn to normally, in order to be prepared for anything that my mind conjures up while wandering around in the Himalayan wonderland of Nepal.

The duality within me truly believes in the power of the mind to influence the processes and functions of the body, while at the same time, doubts that my little mind is enlightened enough to wield such otherworldly power. Just the kind of thing worthy of pondering in long hours of trudging uphill on unpaved foot paths in the thin air of the world’s highest mountains, don’t you think?

Rain, or shine.