East Rock, Day 2

Today we had to shift our run/meditation from the scheduled morning time to late afternoon because of a midterm.  I think that still counts as sticking to the routine, although morning remains the ideal.  Already the challenges of executing a project like this in a busy college environment are becoming apparent, but exposing and overcoming those challenges is kind of the point.  This running routine, and whatever others we'll be trying out in the coming weeks, are a personal reminder that life still exists.

Meditation is pretty damn hard.  Have you ever tried it?

Blank your mind, Geoffrey.  Stop processing information and just live for a few seconds -- wait.  You've got it!  Blank mind achieved.

That's not blankness.  That's thinking about blankness.

So how to halt the constant churning of the brain?  I think that Kenta was onto something in his last post -- just listen.  Perceive but don't process.  The sounds of New Haven float up to the top of East Rock, but they're transformed.  A thousand cars form the roar of a rushing river, and the wispy hints of a cheering soccer croud become birds tweeting.

The distance is perfect because it's natural.  I love the eerie silence you feel looking down upon a city through a glass window from the 50th floor, but this is something else.  We're propelling ourselves with nothing but human power up to the top of a rock that was put there by the Earth millions of years ago.  It's a timeless act.  We could be the man in this painting (if only we had a badass hunting dog).

East Rock in 1872

And maybe it isn't necessary to completely blank out either.  There's something nice about letting the brain run free and seeing what happens.  I love falling asleep on planes and trains, because I often enter this weird state between wakefulness and sleep where I'm conscious of the crazy things my brain is pondering, like a half-dream.  You know what I'm talking about.  And in a world where every free moment is intercepted by ambition -- "What task needs to be achieved next?  Devote full brain power, and go!" -- relinquishing the reins feels healthy and refreshing.

Maybe it's just placebo, but I'm generally starting to feel a little better about life already.

Let's keep it up.