Mundane day

Panties! So, what does this have to do with my day? Read and find out!

So, what am I doing here in the 3-dimensional world on Earth?

Well, remember that business trip I made this spring? As is the custom around here, I sent a travel bill to my employer (not sure what these are called in English, as I don’t travel abroad), to get my money back. This was supposedly confirmed today, so I will probably get the money back this summer.  It was not a lot of money but hey, it’s not like I enjoy traveling, let’s punish them by making them pay.  ^_^

Actually I haven’t asked my employer to cover my travel expenses usually, because I am lazy.  Filling in those forms are extra work and I already have food. But I did it this time.

***

It rained a few drops.  That’s pretty much all it has done this spring. After the snow melted, the ground was of course wet, but that is quite a while ago.  Now it is really dry. A forest fire further west in the province (very safe distance, not even smoke smell here) is now under control, but the whole of southern Norway is like tinder. Anyone throws away a lit cigarette and FWHOOM! Hopefully nobody does that around here.

It never rains in southern California, according to the famous song, but it rarely rains in southern Norway either, surprisingly. The exception is the summer vacation. It usually rains then.  And also somewhat in the fall. But overall there aren’t many days without sunshine here. I enjoy overcast days because I can read all the way on the bus (without getting migraine, which I get only from reading in sunshine). But sunny days are nice too, they make the other people happy, the 99.999% who don’t get their migraine from reading in sunlight.  So that is good too.

OK, I really should rein in that Pollyanna act.

***

I got up an hour and a half early thanks to a bee again. They naturally seek to the window, which is rather close to my face. There is a colony of them outside on that side of the house, so they are fairly common visitors at this time of the year. Perhaps I should turn the bed and take the chance that they don’t actively seek out a human to sting. Or perhaps I should just use the second bedroom.  Although the dead bumblebee on the floor there does not convince me.

***

City of Heroes is down today as they are merging the North American and European server list.  Not the actual servers, but the accounts:  European players will now get access to the American servers as well, and the other way around. There were more American servers than European, so this is especially a gift to their European players.

I have played on the American servers except for a few months, even though I live in Europe. To be honest, the choice was largely for cultural reasons. I found the American community to be more polite and competent, strange as this may sound. I blame the fact that in Europe, superhero comics are considered “for kids”, while in the USA, it is perfectly normal and acceptable for fully employed family fathers (and even some mothers) to read them.

In fact, there is supposedly a new movie out over in the States about Thor, based on the comic rather than directly on the original Norse Myth. I am somewhat acquainted with both, but not enough to steal the movie on Pirate Bay.

***

Speaking of which, Norwegian copyright law is to be tightened a bit again, I read in the IT news today. I am not sure whether this means that I can not stream my music to my friends any longer. What little I have heard is of a more technical nature, that the law will make it easier to find and prosecute illegal file sharing.

That is a bit of, as we say here in Norway, “closing the barn door after the horse has left”.  In this case, it is more like closing the barn door several years after the horse left and while it is about to die from old age.  BitTorrent, the superior file sharing protocol, used to take up more than 3/4 of the Internet bandwidth. The latest numbers are 8%. These days, it is streaming that is in.  America has Hulu for TV (I think) and Pandora and Rhapsody for music. Europe has Spotify for music, and increasing also the Norwegian Wimp is expanding abroad. I don’t think we have legal TV streaming, but seriously, who would want to watch European TV anyway? Instead, you should watch Crunchyroll, which streams Japanese anime. I have tried it, and it is pretty good.

(We are coming to the panties soon, I promise.)

If your teen boy discovers Crunchyroll, make sure to bring him water at least once a day until he recovers.  Resistance will gradually build up, but it may take some weeks.

It does however contain some decidedly non-Republican titles. Not porn exactly, but there could be panties and excessive bounciness in some titles. The Japanese don’t really understand Judeo-Christian sexual morality. Or perhaps they just don’t care.  Or perhaps they are almost immune to panties because of the short skirts that Japanese girls wear in real life too.

***

Speaking of things God hate: Eating SHRIMPS. (Actually they are icky.  But they also happen to be very much not kosher, for those concerned about that.)

I went to the largest supermarket in the city. They had more than half a dozen different brands of shrimp salad, including at least 3 shrimp & egg salads. But not one single egg salad without shrimp. Not one!

Anyway, it is past bedtime and the bees will probably be up early.

7 thoughts on “Mundane day

    • The first step to eliminate repetitive thought patterns is to become aware of them. These thoughts are a defense mechanism and it serves to divert your awareness from things you don’t want yourself to know.

      The next step is to not grapple with them, but to accept their existence in the same way as we accept clouds in the sky or the sound of the surf on the coast. We can pick out the voice of a conversation partner in a noisy room, and in the same way our head can be a noisy room but we can still think clearly once we have accepted and detached from the noise.

      Much of the practice of meditation is about learning to detach in this way. It is favorite topic on the Project Meditation forum. But it is very useful in daily life as well.

  1. Repetitive thought cannot be dismantled by mind, only by presence it seems.

    Stopping thought feels a bit like staying underwater. When I start I can’t do it for more than 5 seconds. If I keep at I can drag the “gaps” and make it last for about ten seconds.

    It’s interesting. The “content” in my life is the same but I’ve been happier these last few months. No bliss though.

    • Hmm. I can stop my thoughts for… not sure how long, last time I tried they stopped until I fell asleep. Being able to stop thoughts is kind of cool, but not terribly useful I think, unless you do martial arts or something that requires unblinking concentration. It seems more useful and practical to be able to “see through” the thoughts, to continue to observe (or be present, I suppose) regardless.

      This is also how they teach it over at Project Meditation. If you have not yet stopped by there, I recommend you do. They also speak Tolle, most of the regulars except me have read his books and like them.

  2. I took a look at project meditation.

    The forum and the posters look pretty decent. I’ll take another look at it after dinner.

    I think Tolle distinguishes between the egoic mind (my life is so bad, my mom hates me, my life will be after I get this job. etc etc) and thought, and the “practical” mind and thought (1+1=2, light is faster than sound, is there a link between cancer and smoking?, and so on).

    Most people do not use their practical mind a lot, unlike yourself. Most people do not have the option to stop thinking, so their problems haunt them while they do other stuff.

    Most of my thinking is definitely useless and repetitive.

    I’m surprised you’ve not read his works. He is a pretty influential author.

    • That’s a fascinating idea, about the two forms of thinking. I wonder how much is nature and how much is habit though. I guess as usual, those who do something easily are also those who continue doing it a lot, much like with sports. All except a few can become good at running, but usually only those run who are already good at it.

      As for Tolle, I read an article by him some years ago. At the time he did not impress me. I don’t consider him an opponent, he is just way down on my reading list, certainly below the original Meister Eckhart. And new people keep sliding in near the top of that list…

  3. It seems to me though, that practical thinking/use of time can develop into egoic thinking/ use of time and vice versa.

    I find that practicing the presence causes egoic thought to dissolve (sometimes very slowly and sometimes the thoughts stop abruptly) but it won’t dissolve practical thought. Presence sort of “slips underneath practical” thought.

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