A quiet place

I see what's happening. I've felt out of step with the world for a long time. Maybe I've always felt that way. In fact, it has reached the point where I haven't made any particular effort to interact with friends for quite some time.

People talk about what disturbs them or has disturbed them in the past. Those things are what I hear more than anything else, in my work and in my time away from work. It didn't take long to join the dots, as they say, and realise how things are.

Old and ancient wisdom is widely dismissed now, simply because it is old and ancient. The problem with that approach is that, although the world is different, some of the things we experience were also experienced by those who were here before us. Reading some of that older wisdom has saddened me, because it helps me understand what is currently happening in the world, and that understanding just makes me want to disconnect from it all sometimes.

The key to understanding is knowing that our beliefs, values and attitudes can be helpful or harmful to us. They can also be helpful or harmful to others.

My role seems to be that of everyone's therapist. It's starting to exhaust me. The only way to recover from it seems to be disconnecting and sitting quietly for a while. Unfortunately, the modern world offers few opportunities for that.

Yoga at 33 percent

There are things I have to accept. Men are not usually so flexible - especially men of my age. Men also have a higher centre of gravity. These things combine to make some poses more difficult. There are further idiosyncrasies of my physique which mean further modifications have to be made. All of this has been taken on board.

Feeling half dead during a practice is something I can't accept though. On the plus side, I had managed to do side planks, which aren't usually readily achievable for me. It's more about balance than strength, really. Unfortunately, the wrist pain which sometimes troubles me made a return, meaning some other things weren't possible. About 30 minutes in, the zombie phase of the lesson began.

It felt like the loss of energy was radiating out from my lower abdomen. In all honesty, to say I suddenly lost energy is something of an understatement. I would happily have spent the rest of the lesson lying on my side, in a fetal position. The dull ache and my desperate attempts to prevent explosive flatulence left no doubt about what was happening.

I missed the previous week. The booking for the lesson was cancelled due to a severe bout of food poisoning. It's not the kind of thing I want to discuss in detail here, but it certainly left me feeling drained. In truth, it feels like my digestive system still hasn't recovered a week later. Up until the yoga class, however, I had no idea of how ill I was still feeling.

The whole experience a week earlier left me wondering about going vegetarian. As a lifelong omnivore, there are the usual concerns about maintaining nutritional balance when switching to a vegetarian diet.

I hope next week's lesson is better.

What we value

I like Japanese music. A number of young Japanese women noticed that I liked Japanese music. They wanted to connect on social media, and it wasn't long before I noticed the provocative poses they made in their photos. Sometimes they were posing in clothes which barely covered anything. Sometimes they brought designer goods, expensive holiday destinations and luxury items to everyone's attention. They were sharing these things on social media, hoping to gain the approval of others.

When we were forced to isolate ourselves here, in response to the virus, I connected with another aspect of Japanese culture. "The Zen Teaching of Homeless Kodo" sat beside my bed, and I read a few pages each night before I slept. In doing this, I ensured that my mind would work through what had been read as I slept.

The question to ask about the young women showing their figures and their wealth is what it is that they want. There are people who tell them they are beautiful, and they seem to like this. There are people who express admiration, or envy, for the luxury items they possess. Their apparent beauty and their wealth are not, it would seem, enough to make them happy. These things are simply tools to help them get what they really want.

There's a strange notion that higher socioeconomic status makes us better than others. Rather than being specific to one culture, this seems to be an innate part of the human psyche,  The problem is, there is some validity to this. During a self-esteem and assertiveness course I attended, the host proclaimed that the appearance of being successful often brings opportunities our way. What he said was very much an acknowledgement that style makes more of an impression than substance.

Put another way, other people feel their status and possessions make them better than us because we allow them to believe it. We pursue the things they have, increasing their perceived value.

A recent trend has been for people who have gained some fame or notoriety to describe themselves as "influencers". The implication is that they believe the world should pay attention to them. Well, here's a middle-aged guy that no one really notices, grouping them all together, to tell them that believing we have any particular influence on others, or that our voices should be heard above others, will only bring suffering in the long term. Human history bears witness to this.

“Sit immovably in the place where being superior or inferior to others doesn’t matter.” ~Kosho Uchiyama Roshi

I understand attachment to possessions. Just recently, I realised that a prolonged bout of severe depression turned me into something of a hoarder. I'm currently dealing with the aftermath of that through an exercise in extreme decluttering. The point is, attachment to possessions made me even more lonely, depressed and generally unable to cope.

Every day, I hear about the suffering of others. In the attachment the young Japanese women have to their youth, beauty and possessions, I see more suffering. If I believe that anything I write here has any particular value, beyond being a simple expression of my thoughts, I will also suffer.