It's been 3 days since I proposed the experiment of living more in Ontological Mode to myself. Today when I felt stuck in the Everyday Mode of Being, unable to print a simple homework assignment due to technological difficulties, I yelled aloud in frustration. It's a good thing no one else was in the McPhaul basement to hear me. Bottomline: I'm noticing that writing and blogging about living in Ontological Mode is a lot easier than doing it! It wasn't too long before I realized I had a "relapse."
Usually when I feel stuck or frustrated, I tend to consult mindfulness literature to encourage me to observe the habitual and powerful pull of Everyday Mode instead of blindly letting it suck me in. One of the most well-known monks and scholars on the face of the earth is Thich Nhat Hanh, whose life-long efforts to engender peace throughout the world moved Martin Luther King to nominate him the nobel peace prize in 1967. In one of his over 60 books, Savor, about mindful eating, he introduces one of his observations from visiting the United States. He noticed most people tend to live with a lot of habit energy. I immediately resonated. So what is it?
Habit Energy is a potent force that yanks us through life, propelling us to rush through most of our activities in order to get to the next one. More is better, right? I can smell some Capitalist America there! It's so unwavering because we tend to be unaware of it and feel powerless to change it. so you have a more tangible idea, it's getting annoyed and impatient when we need to wait two minutes in line to purchase our lunch. It's when we feel irritated that our friend arrived 10 minutes later, making us wait, instead of just relaxing with our breath, enjoying the pause to step into Ontological Mode and let all our blessings sink into to consciousness instead of trying to "kill time." What a terrible phrase, killing time! It's our number one allay! It's life itself! In this blog, I frame it as one of the great tricks Everyday Mode of Being has up its sleeve to take us (and keep us) under its spell. As Thich Nhat Hanh states,
"We are always running and rushing. It has become a habit, the norm of everyday living. We run all the time, during our sleep, the time we are supposed to be resting and regenerating our bodies. We can be worst enemies, in conflict with ourselves, and therefore, you can easily start conflict with others..."
As Thich Nhat Hanh suggests, what's the rush?
Is this how we're going to live until we die? Aren't we exhausting ourselves, running all over the place? Is this really a desirable life? If peace and happiness are such sought-after traits, what are we doing to ourselves? I take it as a gentle reminder to slow down, as our lives are too precious to rush through. I don't know about you all, but I rarely enjoy activities I rush through. Rushing through things stymies enjoyment, pleasure and possibly creativity too. How to do you feel when people try to rush an interaction with you, or stated bluntly, rush through sex? Doing things slowly, mindfully and ontologically is how the tortoise beat the hare! It seems like we haven't really learned from this fable as a capitalist, consumerist culture. The stone-cold truth is that even if we are healthy, we are dying everyday. Every breath inevitably shepherds us to our impending demise. Why not live this moment as fully as possible, before an illness or old age primes of our all human mortality? This is what Ontological Being is all about.
The good news is that the more I become aware of these automatic, conditioned Everyday Mode mental states, the less power they have over me. When I notice the pull, the entitled expectation for immediate gratification, I can pause and just notice it, before I act on it, directly hijacking Everyday mode. The more I notice, the longer the gap becomes to catch myself before I compulsively act on Habit Energy. Maybe I did just relapse, but if I'm committed to learning from my mistakes and expanding my capacity to embody Ontological Being, it's true that relapse can be part of recovery! So far...
I have read a couple of Hanh's books but had never heard of Savor, I'll have to look it up.The idea of habit energy is interesting and something that definitely resonates with me on many levels, especially viewing my current want to change how I approach time management and compartmentalizing. What was so frustrating about the homework assignment not printing? Was it something that had been time consuming, or were there other things going on the compounded your frustration. I'm just curious as to whether it was a "simple thing" that caused the relapse, or if there were larger pieces involved that weren't as evident.
ReplyDeleteIt was time-consuming!
DeleteI really like how you've been bringing so many quotes and readings into your blog. I think I have a thing or two to learn from you about making a blog meaningful (or at the very least interesting). I'm personally struggling with how my change might affect other people in a positive way (other than just REALLY simple things like: if I hadn't slept all day Saturday and gotten some work done, I would have been able to say yes to Jason when he asked me to go with him to a get-together). You shared in an earlier post that you've succeeded at living in ontological mode in the past, and I'm wondering how you believe doing so affected those around you.
ReplyDeleteI'm more relaxed, less reactive and agitated. I don't get annoyed at all with those around me :)
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