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Jun. 7th, 2004 09:45 amOk, so I have three jobs these days. It's not as Old Relative's Story as it sounds, but when I'm an Old Relative, I'll be sure to relate it to my younger relatives to make them feel like slackers compared to my harsh, cold life in the early oughts - then they'll go on and play their fully immersive PS-12's and rocket skates and such, and forget about the doddering fool who still insists on watching movies in mere "color."
Anyway, one of these jobs is landscaping, which brought to mind envisioning the layout of rich peoples' yards (or working without a green card, to stereotype), but really involved getting muddy and thistle-stung. For this I went to college! I spent a good deal of time hedge-trimming yesterday. Most of my experience hedge trimming involved little electric shears and clippers, but this time I had big, burly gas powered ones that were easily three times heavier, not to mention the one with a ten foot pole attachment for cutting things I couldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
I'm not one to look down on an occupation as 'beneath me' by virtue of some imaginary drinking-class/middle-class divide - all of this has just proven I'm better suited for a desk-related job, and ill-suited for a job wherein I pick up things bigger than me. I mean, look at my arms - they're like little girl arms. They look like toothpicks stuck into the side of a carrot. However, this has given me much time to think about all sorts of things, and with the buzz of the clippers as my background, and the earplugs cutting off all ambient noise, it was like my own little isolation tank, with angry bugs. If it weren't for the ache in my arms, it would have been meditation.
Holy hell, this has proven itself time and time again.
I don't want to add too much commentary on that, except that it came to mind while doing something I once would have looked down upon, as a person I once would have looked down upon for many reasons. This isn't some nobility of the common-folk claptrap, but rather a near-satori feeling of being here, now. I was sucking at hedgetrimming, and hating it as well, but was laughing.
This is bookended in my mind by a quote from the unrelated U.G. Krishnamurti (found thanks to our local resilient anti-guru, Leslie):
Calling it all a game seems to be a common trend in wise-seeming folks I'm encountering these days. Calling it all a game also seems to encourage me not to fear it, life that is, and to experience it for what it is, instead of saving up for the day I expect to be able to sit around and look at life's past like a scrapbook, and relating it to some younger relatives.
Anyway, one of these jobs is landscaping, which brought to mind envisioning the layout of rich peoples' yards (or working without a green card, to stereotype), but really involved getting muddy and thistle-stung. For this I went to college! I spent a good deal of time hedge-trimming yesterday. Most of my experience hedge trimming involved little electric shears and clippers, but this time I had big, burly gas powered ones that were easily three times heavier, not to mention the one with a ten foot pole attachment for cutting things I couldn't touch with a ten foot pole.
I'm not one to look down on an occupation as 'beneath me' by virtue of some imaginary drinking-class/middle-class divide - all of this has just proven I'm better suited for a desk-related job, and ill-suited for a job wherein I pick up things bigger than me. I mean, look at my arms - they're like little girl arms. They look like toothpicks stuck into the side of a carrot. However, this has given me much time to think about all sorts of things, and with the buzz of the clippers as my background, and the earplugs cutting off all ambient noise, it was like my own little isolation tank, with angry bugs. If it weren't for the ache in my arms, it would have been meditation.
This quote kept coming to mind:
"The mind is only free when it is capable of meeting life at every moment, meeting the reality that every incident, every thought, every experience reveals. And that revelation is not possible when the mind is crippled by the past." - J.Krishnamurti
Holy hell, this has proven itself time and time again.
I don't want to add too much commentary on that, except that it came to mind while doing something I once would have looked down upon, as a person I once would have looked down upon for many reasons. This isn't some nobility of the common-folk claptrap, but rather a near-satori feeling of being here, now. I was sucking at hedgetrimming, and hating it as well, but was laughing.
This is bookended in my mind by a quote from the unrelated U.G. Krishnamurti (found thanks to our local resilient anti-guru, Leslie):
"We don't want to be free from fear. All that we want to do is to play games with it and talk about freeing ourselves from fear."
Calling it all a game seems to be a common trend in wise-seeming folks I'm encountering these days. Calling it all a game also seems to encourage me not to fear it, life that is, and to experience it for what it is, instead of saving up for the day I expect to be able to sit around and look at life's past like a scrapbook, and relating it to some younger relatives.
