I sit in my crowded room, mostly taken up by the double bed, which actually doubles, shall I say triples as a sleep-sadhana-work/study space. And as I watch myself… jump from… watching snippets of the latest 007 film (someone downloaded and gave to me the .avi file via their pen drive); attempting to understand this book lukru laLÑrh (Sanatan Sanskriti, a friend wrote and gave me a hardcopy), while painstakingly looking up nearly every fifth word in the Oxford Hindi/English Dictionary and constructing my new glossary in a notebook meant for school children; checking on the status of a youtube download of a webcast last night’s discourse I saw live here in Haridwar; posting, commenting and reading posts and comments on FB; rightClicking to open up links in new tabs to read articles later; getting frustrated with the Hindi reading and browsing through paragraphs of the several other online (English) articles I’ve left open on my web browser; checking FB and gmail messages that get alerted via my android (faster than the browser is working at this point); drafting lines of thoughts, spilling out of my head on to various word documents, covering several subjects, all of which somewhat connected; sipping chai (now almost luke warm); closing my eyes to remind myself to pay attention to my breath and try to recognize if really my heart palpitations seem to be occasionally syncopated.
I think it is time to stretch my legs (few hours already sitting in sukhasana in front of my makeshift desk made of two stacked pillows), go downstairs and get some lunch.
I return and check the updated comments to my latest FB status, but reply nothing save hitting the thumbs up button; read two of the aforementioned articles so I can close those tabs; thumb an illustrated yoga book to check the correct spelling of the way I usually sit (minus proper chair and desk); then get distracted looking at all the other poses I would like to do, had I had more floor space in this room; then after seeing there is still 32mins to download that youtube discourse, I remember… I was in the middle of writing something.
Why is it we multitask? I would like to know who came up with the ideal that being able to handle several dissimilar tasks at once was to be considered a sophistication of human evolution? And for some reason I don’t quite think I’m alone here when I admit, I find myself often in the middle of reading several books, writing several essays, composing several pieces of music, editing several clips of video… and till now most of them remain incomplete. It is no wonder why it is in the West today’s younger generations are force-focused via meds. But I would like to understand what it is about the culture that raised me, (on high-fructose sugar cereals and sport drinks, Atari, Nintendo, Internet, social media and smartPhones), that stands out both differentiating itself as well as infiltrating the culture in which I’m slowing becoming indoctrinated.
The Eastern way is often less complicated, and thus I might claim to say, more calming: do one thing at a time, ekagrata (one focus). I am reminded of this, as I watch myself (in contrast) walking down the street in a very New York City fashion, not only at a much quicker pace than most with whom I’m sharing the side of the road, but also talking on the phone, or worse eating something.
Yesterday, a few days after I began to write this entry, I decided to experiment with my attention span and noticed having the computer OFF all day enabled me to stay focused on one task at a time. I choose something artistic, creative and crafty on which to focus, and I began to finally pattern out, cut the fabric, and stitch my new jholi.
one stitch, one mantra, one breath, in and out. peace of mind. calmness. repeat.
more on the subject:
multi-tasking-aint-yoga, by vrindavan rao
Out to Lunch, by Nick Paumgarten © 2009 The New Yorker
Sadhu Jholi on FB
