I’m messing around with a standing desk. Woot. Does anyone have tips?
I’m motivated to do this for a few reasons:
1) There’s an epidemic of “sitting disease” — tight hips, expanding bellies, tense shoulders. I’m reminded of this every time I attend a yin class and end up crying four minutes into a deep pigeon pose. It’s true, emotions are caught up in the hips.
2) This year I am trying to unleash my creativity. It’s in there. And something tells me that I’m due for a leap forward — but not until I figure out how to describe this without linear reference. The thing is, the need to move ahead and up is part of a problem that I am overcoming. I don’t have the new language yet that I need to even describe the process to myself.
Which brings me to reading. Figuring out a new relationship with time and space and creativity is a wheel that doesn’t need to be reinvented. Lots of people have thought this through, and the best new source of thought-provoking writing about this is right at your fingertips.
I could spend all day reading Maria Popova’s digest, Brain Pickings. A lot of recent posts tackle boredom, distraction and creativity. The irony is that her summaries of great writers’ thoughts on these subjects and others are so rich in cross-links, you’re likely to get lost and forget where you started and end up with a reading list as long as your arm.
Lately I’m reading Alan Watts, on presence and how a desire for certainty and security in a fast-changing world causes disconnection and anxiety. It’s a text that should be widely read by our leaders in the ISIS terror age.
“…the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.”
I also found Sam Harris here, and have devoured his thoughtful celebration of spirituality without religion in “Waking Up.” It infuriates me that there is still a debate about this. Seriously, anyone who takes time to stand in the woods can grasp what he is trying to say. Separating ourselves from the constant chatter of our minds without needing simple explanations is spirituality. It’s freedom. Watch a brief intro to this line of thinking by Sam Harris here.
There’s so much more to share from Brain Pickings, but I do a poor job of summary, and I want to get back to reading. Every time I drop by the site or receive her weekly Twitter digest, I feel validated in my searching — and more eager to get back to the woods at Walden to just observe.
>> Update: The German chocolate protein bars were a hit. Use this recipe.
>> More this week on how to stand up straight.
