You’re about to see a word you won’t like. Stick with me. I’ve been trying to…here it comes…meditate.
I know, I know, I’m rolling my eyes too! I only started because I had to: doctor’s orders.
A few months ago, I was diagnosed with OCD, which was a surprise and not a surprise and a huge relief. I’m not quite ready to write about it, but someday soon I might. No dramatic reason. I just haven’t fully navigated my way around it yet.
For now, I’ll say it’s mild, it’s genetic, and as ever, my alphabetized spice drawer looks fucking amazing.
I’ve been seeing a specialist who recently gave me the assignment to meditate "most days." I begged her to tell me exactly how often, to which I only got a see why you’re here? smirk.
The meditation is to help with mindfulness, which is to help lighten the exhausting load of thoughts OCD brings with it. I’ve never been able to fully grasp mindfulness. Like, why would you want to just sit there when you could be worrying? Please. Be serious.
Around the same time I got the assignment, I came across a NYT article, "8 Books for Anyone Curious About Meditation,” and decided to try Mindfulness in Plain English, by Bhante Gunaratana. Plain is my favorite kind of English! Right after whatever Tom Hardy is.
The book was great—a low woo-woo, chill reference as I start trying to meditate an unknown freaking amount of times per week. One? Two? Forty-three? I am very busy determining whether minced onions go under “M” or “O.” Just tell me, goddammit!
My biggest takeaway from the book, though, has less to do with meditation and more about our daily operating system. Gunaratana talks about how we’re almost always on a quest to either: a) grab onto amazing experiences, or b) run away from the bad ones. And in that quest, it becomes easy to miss the bulk of our existence: the average. As he says:
"The direct result…is a perpetual treadmill race to nowhere, endlessly pounding after pleasure, endlessly fleeing from pain, endlessly ignoring 90 percent of our experience."
He posits that mindfulness can help us stop chasing the great and rejecting the bad—and start accepting and being satisfied by the average. (Which, it’s important to note, he does admit is "very difficult" and "takes years.")
I love this idea, and have been turning it over in my head a lot. I find myself thinking, let’s go have an average experience, which feels like a less preachy, more palatable version of “lower your expectations.”
Think about it: haven’t some of your most anticipated experiences been the biggest letdowns? How often have you chased the perfect New Year’s Eve, only to have it fall short?
This is why my high school prom sucked! I chased the fairy tale. I got a date who threw up Purple Passion on the hotel couch while his best friend and girlfriend moaned loudly behind the closed bedroom door.
Seeking out the average is a mindset I am working on. One I can already feel helping me grasp mindfulness in a new way. It’s a relaxing way to be, less pressured to make every day the best day possible. Noticing the little stuff more.
Realizing that the 90% we usually ignore is actually pretty great.
Input!
• Lotsa good movies: one haunting-sad, one raunchy-fun, and one long-overdue rewatch
• Checked off #17 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy; #104 Sticky Fingers; #21 Born to Run
• A Wikipedia for us simple types and an account featuring the very simplest
• “what I know: A List, at Sixty”
• Finished two fantastic fiction books, Big Swiss and Sorrow and Bliss and finalllllly started the book I might be the last of my creative friends to read
• Finally tried ep 1 of this juggernaut (not much into sci-fi, so we’ll see if Pedro and his jawline can keep me interested)
• Carrot inspectors, feeling Beyoncé, and he’s onto something here
• Finally:
I'm a massive fan of the 90%. Maybe that's why we click. I definitely cannot help you meditate, but I can help you buy emergency mid-week, late night underpants and toothbrush at Walgreens on a completely organic, unexpected adventure. Grab that low hanging, everyday experience by the gd balls, Refined Sugar.
There's so much to love about this ! Thank you for sharing your story and for the life altering perspective on embracing and living in the 90%. So much to take away here! (P.S. I hope Pedro's jawline holds up for the entirety of the season)