+++ title = “01” date = 2020 +++ Have you ever gone to a museum for abstract art? And have you ever wondered what you’re looking at? Why it sells? There’s a classic meme of someone looking at a big white frame that an artist left intentionally blank, and it has a price tag of $1000. Then there’s also the case of abstract math. This is what teachers mean when they teach things like 7-2, without any context or real world application.

Row row row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. It occurred to me that this children’s rhyme might be a Zen koan (a puzzle with no answer). Rowing is an active movement, a choice. And we do it merrily, to enjoy life and pay no attention to suffering. But a stream carries us, whether we want it to or not. We can’t choose what shows up on the shores nearby.

+++ title = “01” date = 2020 +++ Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? A garden and a gym are both opportunities for growth. In a gym, it’s the gym-goers duty to lift heavier or run faster/farther than they did the week before. In a garden, it’s a plant’s job to grow, and it’s the gardener’s job to create the conditions necessary for that growth to occur.

+++ title = “01” date = 2020 +++ I’ve had many recurring nightmares in my life, but none have been quite as prevalent as the one where I’m underprepared. It takes a few forms. Sometimes I’ve forgotten that there’s a class I signed up for, never went to, and now I have to take the exam. Other times, I have a gig and I forget some equipment and while I’m trying to get things together people are leaving.

In the waiting room of my therapist’s office, there’s a huge TV screen that shows a live feed of the view from the International Space Station. Another thing: because her office is filled with other therapists, everyone has a white noise machine outside of their room to make sure nothing from the session is heard outside. So most times while I’m waiting for her, I’m watching the world from space and drowning in a sea of ambient white noise.