Hello, hello. This week was my first week back in the jail since my trip to Norway, which was super, super fun — a paddleboarding expedition with Buster and friends. More on that in a bit.
But first, the jail. My insight this week has to do with just how much variety there is in how people respond to the guided meditations I’ve been offering. It reminds me of that story — probably an urban legend, possibly completely made up — about a kingdom where everyone had to eat with absurdly long-handled spoons. The handles were too long to get food into their own mouths, so everyone was struggling, until they discovered it was a lot easier to feed each other instead.
That’s how guided meditation often feels to me. When I’m the one guiding, I sometimes think, huh, other people seem to be getting a lot out of what I’m doing — more than I can feed myself with it. Which is a very funny thing to notice.
And I want to be honest: this is definitely not true across the board. Some people participate but seem mostly confused by the whole experience. Which is totally okay. Some of that is surely my skill level in running the class right now. I’m starting to be more okay with that. I used to think, oh no, if everyone isn’t having exactly the same positive experience, I must be doing something wrong. Ironically, that’s its own form of attachment — wanting a certain outcome. So I’m practicing letting that go, and trying to apply it to the rest of my life too.
Speaking of which. I was talking to a friend recently about my current job situation, and how I’m always trying to make sure things aren’t completely disastrous, even though many things are outside my control. But here’s the thing: historically, I’ve never been fired for performance. The one time I was laid off, I wasn’t underperforming; the company restructured, and that was that. My fear is never quite what I think it is. I spent so long worried about “am I getting a job or not?” and now the worry has flipped into “oh no, I have a job and it’s very time-consuming.” My fears and worries keep ending up either irrelevant or the exact opposite of what actually happens.
I’m wondering if this is true for you, reading this. Does what you worry about often turn out to be irrelevant — or does the opposite thing happen entirely?
Maybe seeing this play out over and over, enough repetitions with age, has helped me finally start to believe it. Unpredictability isn’t a bug in this whole life-programming situation; it’s literally one of the Buddhist tenets. It’s part of the program. And it’s so hard to accept, because the natural tendency is to want more control, and the reality of how little control there is feels paradigm-breaking. Unfathomable, honestly.
Of course, if things were truly random, we wouldn’t bother doing anything at all, and that’s clearly not the case either. At least in Buddhist practice, there’s a training component — like going to the gym, except the gym is your mind. There’d be no point in training if nothing were improvable by what we do. I think it’s the input side — the sheer unpredictability of what happens to us — that gets us into these tricky situations.
One thing I did for this visit: I expanded the handout I give to attendees. There’s still so much that can be improved, and I always wonder, am I including the right pieces? I’ve even added some Bible quotes, because for some folks that’s what’s most relevant. If you come from a Christian tradition, meditating on scripture you love is completely valid — teachers like Thomas Keating built a whole contemplative practice around meditation on God’s word. So the handout keeps evolving. I’ll try to attach a copy in case it’s of interest.
Now, Norway. Here’s the unusual part: on this expedition, I didn’t work on anything. Obviously no day job, but I also didn’t touch any of my projects, which is very unusual for me. And it was a genuinely good experience to feel the absence of active projects — to be truly in the moment for most of it.
It also gave me a healthier relationship with my projects. I think I was doing a lot of things out of FOMO before — “I really need to figure things out, blah blah blah.” This stretch of not working on anything helped me see that there’s a lot of genuine joy I get from making things. (My work team gave me a 3D printer, and I’ve been obsessed. Making things out of plastic! It brings me so much joy.)
And while I was taking in the beauty of Norway, I noticed I’d get a separate kind of joy if I could process what I was seeing — through artwork, through some way of squeezing more juice out of the experience. Because honestly, my memory is a sieve. Experiences just seem to slip through, fast, and it feels almost unmooring sometimes — to have things come and go like that. I relish an experience more when I can add a little creativity to it, some tactile way of holding it, making something out of it. So that’s what I felt on this trip: I’d like to do a bit more with my experiences. Of course, as usual, my creative ambitions don’t necessarily match the available time and energy. But I’d like to.
So those are the things swirling in my head right now. In terms of life: I feel very sane, and very supported by my friends. And sorry if I still owe you a reply — I had ambitions of writing back to all the kind friends who wrote to me during the trip, and for better or for worse, that didn’t happen. See above, re: not working on anything.
I look forward to reconnecting soon, probably after I rejuvenate from all the jet lag. Take care for now.
