December 9, 2015
That’s what they taught the mynah birds to say on the island of Pala in Aldus Huxley’s book called Island to remind people to live in the here and now. (I love that book!) I repeat that phrase to myself to try to remember to pay attention and live here and now as often as I can.
It cracks me up that I’m out here in the South Pacific Ocean on a boat off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island and what am I doing? Searching newegg.com* for a hard drive. Is that living in the moment?
Shouldn’t I be paying attention to my surroundings? Admiring Cape Brett? Noticing the way the wind moves the boat and feels on my face? Appreciating the little sun that there is and happy it’s not colder?
I wonder: Am I really any less “here and now” when I’m shopping on Newegg? I feel like I’m very much in the moment. Not a moment of being at sea, but I am totally engrossed, for the moment, in the hard drive shopping process. I might even say I’m experiencing flow – aware of nothing else, not remembering the past nor contemplating a future that might have limited space to anchor in the next bay. During this time, I’m not worrying about anything and I’m not making any future plans (other than maybe installing the new drive in our laptop!).
Is it really worse to be out here looking at hard drives on my phone than to be staring off at the landscape? I think when I’m staring off at the landscape or the ocean, I’m more apt to worry about things to come and things that have been. I feel like people would look down on me for working on the internet out here. Strange this, kind of a reverse work ethic. “You should be doing nothing and not working.”
And to sail off on a slightly different course: It’s kind of amazing that shopping Newegg is even an option. Not many years ago, there wouldn’t have been internet waves out here. What an amazing world. I don’t know if the change is for better or worse. For me, better I think.
Better for us because this isn’t a day sail, a vacation, a one-time day-trip on a sail boat, but rather a way of life for four years now. If it were my only chance to sail beside beautiful mountains on a calm, blue sea, than it would be a shame to miss even a second of it. It’s not a one-time event for us… It’s just another Wednesday. I think it’s different when you are living this life rather than just experiencing what is our day-to-day world as a transitory event.
Yep, that settles it. It’s OK for me to shop on my phone. I give me permission. I’ll let you know how the new hard drive works out. -Rich
*If you don’t know newegg, you should. It’s an incredible place to buy computer stuff. www.newegg.com
