There is scene in Jackie Chan's The Karate Kid where Michele Yeoh makes a snake mirror her moves. She achieves this by making her mind absolutely still. Its a skill I would love to learn and no not to make a snake dance to my tunes.If I was a snake charmer and my brain the snake I would simply give up in exasperation.
Don't get me wrong, the problem I am referring to is not focus. Oh I can focus alright, the rest of the world may seem a blur when I am concentrating on something. And none of this refers to being scatterbrained, which I am not. I manage my affairs just fine thank you. Its just about those idle moments when my mind is never at peace.
When idle, my mind is a constant warzone with ideas, feelings and thoughts constantly bombarding. If it isn't this, its that and there and then. It exhausting to be in this sort of a place for a large part of your waking hours...to be constantly pulled up on diverse subjects. To have constant thoughts and queries in the sort of carpet bombing that was an awful truth of the Afgan conflict.
I love to learn and know more about the world but sometimes the questions and queries just don't stop. And the thoughts range from Chinese communism...to the economic slowdown....to who won the advertising gold...to do Indian athletes stand a chance of gold at London....to what games is Sharad Pawar playing....to my friend who is going through something and what our generation has lost in comparison to the previous one..to what drove Julia Child..to what my family is doing. They are all great topics to think about, just not all at the same time.
Yet, they come in droves with my curiosity always driving me too fast for me to enjoy the view. Growth is one thing and an inability to mentally relax is another.
Years ago I was reading a confessional of a Tennis player in Readers Digest and he said one of the best advice he got was to shut up the voice in his head. I would love to do the same....be less mentally exhausted....just don't know how.
Don't get me wrong, the problem I am referring to is not focus. Oh I can focus alright, the rest of the world may seem a blur when I am concentrating on something. And none of this refers to being scatterbrained, which I am not. I manage my affairs just fine thank you. Its just about those idle moments when my mind is never at peace.
When idle, my mind is a constant warzone with ideas, feelings and thoughts constantly bombarding. If it isn't this, its that and there and then. It exhausting to be in this sort of a place for a large part of your waking hours...to be constantly pulled up on diverse subjects. To have constant thoughts and queries in the sort of carpet bombing that was an awful truth of the Afgan conflict.
I love to learn and know more about the world but sometimes the questions and queries just don't stop. And the thoughts range from Chinese communism...to the economic slowdown....to who won the advertising gold...to do Indian athletes stand a chance of gold at London....to what games is Sharad Pawar playing....to my friend who is going through something and what our generation has lost in comparison to the previous one..to what drove Julia Child..to what my family is doing. They are all great topics to think about, just not all at the same time.
Yet, they come in droves with my curiosity always driving me too fast for me to enjoy the view. Growth is one thing and an inability to mentally relax is another.
Years ago I was reading a confessional of a Tennis player in Readers Digest and he said one of the best advice he got was to shut up the voice in his head. I would love to do the same....be less mentally exhausted....just don't know how.
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