Odds & Bits : Prologue

by Dayran

When I was working … I used to do a bit of za-zen … each night ... before going to bed. But I varied the technique to suit my needs. I'll begin with a book I have not read … turn to any random page … and read the two pages. Thereafter I'll wonder about what has already taken place … and what is to come. I found it useful as a tool … for training the mind to think.

 

After three months … I came to reflect on the fact that … life is such … we don't really know the start … and we wonder about where it is leading to. That helped to manage the constant anxieties … a father at work engages … in relation to his work … society … and the family.

 

It was also helpful to view the individual events we encounter daily … on an ad hoc basis … without dragging in heaven and earth. It helped to moderate the attentiveness to issues … and persuaded me that … its the way society … and the social imperative functioned. It also highlighted the nature of these individual events … as odds and ends … and brought the simple attitude of entertainment at such events.

 

Mark Twain in The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County … related a off-the-cuff story … about the leaping habits of frogs … and how that formed the basis … of a cheat in a competition between two frog owners … in Calaveras County. In addition … it referred to the esteem of individuals … that's supported by the simple ability of reptiles in the wild ... where such an individual is the owner of the reptile.

 

In a social context … it may have reflected on the intellect … and the literacy rate … of Calaveras County … as much as it would a c**k fighting pastime … in Indonesia. But the observations by Twain … into the impulse nature of human behavior … in the way that he brought that into words … created such an entertainment of the event … that the reader would have ignored anything else in relation to it. It provided a distraction … and rest … before we return to the daily grind of work and disciplined common sense.

 

Such an impulse in play in the human mind … is an incredible tool of learning … especially in children … who engage a vast scope of impulses in a single day … in their daily activities … and makes for a balanced adult experience when they are growing up. It persuades the growing adult to … apply himself to a bigger view of circumstances … and not create the obvious response of … fight or flee … at each event they encounter. Its nice to know … there are alternative ways of looking at something.

 

After the Calaveras story appeared ... Twain reports his finding that there was a similar story ... occurring two to three thousand years before in Greece. But a check in England ... indicated that an English author had synopsized the Calaveras story ... but set it in Ancient Greece.

 

On reflection … the random page experience with the book … helps to minimize … our dependency on assurances.  And in some ways … preserves the experience … of the child at play … in the mind ... in a world in which ... the facts appear to change ... from time to time.