Did you ever see the movie "Star Trek: Insurrection"? This is the movie which puts Jean Luc and company on a planet which has a “fountain of youth” effect. While Jean Luc is there he meets a women and falls in love with her. During the movie she tries to teach him the importance of taking the time out of your day to live in the moment. I like this idea and I found myself "living in the moment" that this past weekend.
On Saturday, I went cycling on the Tow path and I enjoyed a long ride from Broadripple to Downtown and back. While we were riding back, I found myself engrossed in a conversation with my companion, and as we were talking I began blocking everything else out. I was riding North bound on the left hand side of the path (IE…the wrong side) when we encountered other riders. I honestly didn’t see them as we approached. My friend said that they were waving at me and tried to get my attention to move. I was not having it. All of a sudden the biker was upon us and had to go on the grass to get around me. He yelled some things at me and I in turn yelled some things back. During this entire incident my companion just kept riding along on the correct side of the path.
My point is that I was living in the moment and oblivious to everything around me. I think it is great when I find myself able to concentrate on the situation at hand. This is one of the most important things about social situations for me. If I am feeling awkward or shy (I know....it is hard to imagine) I am not able to bring myself to this level of connection with my friends. To be honest...I cannot even recall what we were talking about at the time of the cycling incident but I do remember the feeling of being engrossed.I am usually not aware of this phenomenon while they occur, but when I am reflecting back on my day I can pick them out. This doesn't happen to me every day or even every week but this is how I am able to recharge myself and increase my energy reserves (just like on Star Trek, only without the anti-aging effects).
I think this is one of the things that has allowed me to embrace exercise this summer. I do not like to do it by myself, but when I have company I am able to walk 4 miles at Fort Harrison and be sad when it is over or bike 20 miles in an afternoon. I think that it is too bad for my employers that I cannot transcend that feeling to my work. I was never one of those people who look up at five and am surprised that it is time to go home. However, I am often surprised when it is time to finish up biking and go home. Perhaps one day my work and passion will become the same thing!
Have any of my readers had this experience. Can you live in the moment and block out all outside stimulus and focus on the experience? Tell me about it.
September 21, 2009
Living in the Moment
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
That darn tow path took more concentration from me than it should have. One wrong move or two, and I'm in the dirty water. Dirty water=Bad. I know what you mean about living in the moment, though. I think when we biked from 161st to 96th, I was totally in that moment.I think the partial sensory deprivation (darkness) on part of that ride added to that.
I would strongly recommend that you work on not blocking things out when you ride. You pay little enough attention to safety as it is.
I might be wrong, but my impression of "living in the moment" doesn't involve blocking out other things that are going on ... it's more like blocking out things that don't involve what you are doing at that time. You don't worry about tomorrow or next week or next year or 10 years from now, just what you're doing now.
And it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't do anything to plan for the future. It means that you focus on doing today what you can do today. (This is a Buddhist perspective, so naturally there could be other ways of interpreting it that I might not know.)
So living in the moment on a bike ride, from my perspective, would mean that you are not thinking about your job, or book club, or your family (unless they are riding with you), or your contest. You would be thinking about riding your bike and talking to the people with whom you are riding. You'd be thinking about the scenery that you rode by, the path(s) on which you're riding, the weather at the time of the ride.
And you would most certainly be thinking about riding on the correct side of the road.
Post a Comment