Being Present is a Present to Yourself

From: "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle
Why should we be addicted to thinking?
"Because you are identified with it, which means that you derive your sense of self from the content and activity of your mind. Because you believe that you would cease to be if you stopped thinking. As you grow up, you form a mental image of who you are, based on your personal and cultural conditioning. We may call this phantom self the ego. It consists of mind activity and can only be kept going through constant thinking. The term ego means different things to different people, but when I use it here it means a false self, created by unconscious identification with the mind.

To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only past and future are considered important. This total reversal of the truth accounts for the fact that in the ego mode the mind is so dysfunctional. It is always concerned with keeping the past alive, because without it -- who are you? It constantly projects itself into the future to ensure its continued survival and to seek some kind of release or fulfillment there. It says: "One day, when this, that, or the other happens, I am going to be okay, happy, at peace." Even when the ego seems to be concerned with the present, it is not the present that it sees: It mispercieves it completely because it looks at it through the eyes of the past. Or it reduces the present to a means to an end, an end that always lies in the mind-projected future. Observe your mind and you'll see that this is how it works. The present moment holds the key to liberation."

How true, especially if you give that last part a try. Really step back and observe the mind as it oscillates between past and future but never settles on the now. It's amazing and disturbing at the same time. Reading Tolle is part of my voluntary simplicity movement where I am working towards not only decluttering my home, but also my mind! Another interesting this is my friend Amy is also posting on this very subject, as though we were thinking along these same lines recently. You should go give it a read.

The First Paragraph

The world is profoundly changing, that much seems clear. We have entered a time of great uncertainty that extends from local to global scale. We are forced by pressing circumstances to ask difficult questions about the way we live our lives: Will my present way of life still be workable when my children grow up? How might their lives, and my own, be different? Am I satisfied with my work? Does my work contribute to the well-being of others--or is it just a source of income? How much income do I really require? Require for what? How much of my consumption adds to the clutter and complexity of my life rather than to my satisfaction? How does my level and pattern of consumption affect the other people and the environment? Is there an alternative way of living that is more sustainable in an era of scarcity? Do I have the flexibility to adapt to a period of prolonged energy shortage and economic depression? In the face of scarcity, is there an alternative way of living that fosters cooperation and community rather than cutthroat competition and social fragmentation? Are there small changes that I could make in my own life that, with many others making similar changes, would result in a large difference in the well-being of others? What are my responsibilities to the other members of the human family who are living in grinding poverty? Am I missing much of the richness of life by being preoccupied with the search for social status and consumer goods? What is my purpose in life? How am I to take charge of my own life?
--The first paragraph of Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. It gives you quite a bit to think about right off, doesn't it?

Did Doing Will Do!

Just read: Scaling Down by Judi Culbertson; Choosing Simplicity by Linda Pierce and 365 Simple Reminders by Elaine St. James.
Reading: Your Money or Your Life by Dominguez and Robin; Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin and Paganism by Higginbotham.
Up Next To Get: Follow Your Bliss by Sparrow and Zina and To Have or To Be? by Erich Fromm; also some books by Eckhart Tolle
Just Crocheted: A pigtail hat for Leith and a kitchen washrag for Josh.
Am Crocheting: Nothing
Want to Crochet: Not sure, really just feel 'out of it' craft wise.

Was thinking about: The nature of friendships and my difficulty obtaining and sustaing them.
Am thinking about: Cleaning my office, what I can get rid of next. The Gator Bowl
Need to think about: What's next?

Take Root

"It is a process, finally, of cultivating oneself and one's relationships with others- including spiritual ones. Mainstream society consists of the exact opposite--ever briefer and more superficial encounters with ever larger quantities of goods, services and people. There is no pleasure or contact, only the giddy adrenaline fueled whirl of changing experience without substance, touch without intimacy, information without meaning, company without community." From Choosing Simplicity by Linda Pierce

All of my reading as of late (with the exception of The Tales of Beetle the Bard) has had to do with voluntary simplicity. This quote was actually at the end of the book I was reading and it struck a chord with me right away. My life has been just as it says- full of meaningless contact, the acquisition of more and more worthless goods, having a steady stream of information coming to my brain so it couldn't rest and really realize what was underneath all of this nonsense. Its too much. I've said, "Enough.". My first steps have been decluttering (I've gotten rid of bags and bags of clothes and shoes, the tv, the playstation and it's games, old paperwork, purses, even outdated foods in the cupboards) and reading books on voluntary simplicity. I've also been striving to drastically reduce my Internet usage, since this, in addition to the physical clutter of my home, is my number one 'drug'. So far, I haven't obtained more peace, but I feel like I have planted seeds. Now I must continue to water them and tend them most gently so they will sprout and set down deep roots.