Kotsu Kotsu

From an article by Robert D. Kaplan in The Atlantic: "Road-warrior hell: I get off a 15-hour flight from North America and turn on my BlackBerry at some Asian airport. Instead of focusing on the immediate environment and the ride into town, I am engrossed in the several dozen e-mails that piled up while I was en route, a third of which require a serious response, and one or two of which relay worrying news. As if that isn’t enough of a distraction: throughout all my journeys, because of the 12-hour time difference, each morning in Asia begins with a slew of e-mails from the East Coast, again requiring responses, again relaying crises to deal with. Wherever we are, we are all always available, and everybody knows it. The media tell us how lucky we are to live in the Information Age. I believe we have created a hell on Earth for ourselves." The author believes that in order to truly experience someplace new, we have to stop multitasking. How about "in order to truly...

"I can't wait til I'm done practicing..." "I can't wait till warmups are over and we start technique..." "I can't wait till this cold goes away..." How many times do I find myself thinking this phrase, "I can't wait"? "I can't wait" is a pretty insidious little phrase. It creeps into my thoughts without me really noticing I'm thinking it. When I do become aware of it, I try to take a few seconds and notice something around me, so that I can be where I am and appreciate just being alive, living, breathing. It's not easy when you're going through something unpleasant, whether it's just a few days without power or internet or something worse. It seems like it would be much more pleasant to "sleep through" the boring and ugly parts of life, and only wake up during the fun parts. But the habit of sleeping through life isn't so easily dropped: if we don't practice staying aw...

I was talking to a colleague the other day as we were heading home about how much we look forward to the weekend. I understand her feeling that way, especially as she has two young kids. But we both remembered the movie Click with Adam Sandler. The premise of the movie is a massive cliche, and maybe that's why it was so appealing. We all know it's true: if you get into the habit of "fast forwarding" your life, when it's over, what do you have? I am working on a different habit, which is just to notice when I am thinking about the future. Some people tend to dwell on an imagined past, I tend to imagine and anticipate what will happen - all completely fabricated, of course! But if I can notice when I am doing this, I have a shot at being where I am, maybe if only for a microsecond. I'm gonna keep trying.