August 30th, 2006

Have you ever noticed that the best of times are often (usually, in fact) those unexpected moments when you are taken unawares to some other and random location ... asked or incited to perform, or just participate in, some purposeless or unusual activity?

And have you also noticed that frequently (usually, in fact) those moments of leisure or enjoyment that you have expended time and energy planning out ... performing acts of ritualistic diversion, are not at all the delicious orgies of pleasure that you had intended?

Nothing brings this home more vividly in my mind than the example of planning a vacation to the Seaside and spending the whole time in pursuit of enjoyment, thoroughly desperate and unhappy—but determined not to admit that fact to oneself. "I'm having such a grand time, old chap; wish you were here!"

I swear, upon my grandmothers' graves that the most cathartic, most enjoyable, most refreshing, and most leisurely times I have spent in my life were new, completely unexpected, and in spite of my plans to do something completely different (or, some rare times, in the vacuums created by not planning anything at all—though you have to be careful with that, since planning to have free time to do anything you like is still planning!)

I guess this just goes to prove true a conviction that has been growing in me for most of my adult life: There's a perverseness to life ... a contrariness that makes unwanted opposites become the most likely outcomes.

And I think I even know why. Consider life in a sailboat. You sit there looking at the water between you and the land you want to sail to, and you think to yourself, "I need to get blown thataway in order to get to there." So you huff and you puff and you ... do absolutely nothing, since you blow the boat in backwards with the same breath that presses the sails forwards. There is a conservation of energy going on.

Or, in simpler terms, try picking yourself up. Good luck. Let me know when you've done it.

In the meantime, though, consider how leisure seems to work the same way. We define leisure as a diversion from that which we do during the rest of our busy lives. Obviously, it rises from the idea that all work and no play makes us all dull boys and girls. And, sure, that makes some sense to me. But just steering ourselves away from the planning and adherence to strictures in the workplace and towards a different regimen of so-called leisure is no diversion at all. It is just more of the same. What we need is the unexpected to stir things up. A spark of the unknown, our own personal jester.

What we need is someone to figuratively blindfold us and lead us out of the Polis and into the Hinterland of the mind. We need to be misled ... or at least led astray from our own systems and notions. We need to be abandoned just inside the gates of The Unknown ... even if it is just unknown ideas.

And, just as we can't tickle ourselves successfully, we can't lead ourselves into a new temporary (leisurely) consciousness. We need that unexpectedness. That newness. We need the mind of another.

OK, let's put this into a parable:

A student of philosophy was obsessed with answering a question. He thought about it during all his waking days and tossed and turned, consumed by it at night. It affected everything in his life; so much so, in fact, that he couldn't eat or sleep, couldn't perform the simplest of daily tasks, couldn't even carry on intelligent conversations about anything except finding the answer. And so, finally, he approached a great Master of Mind and Thought, seeking the answer to the question that burned inside him.

"Master," he pleaded. "I bear the weight of a hundred men. I cannot sleep or eat, my friends have abandoned me, I do not perform my duties and responsibilities as a responsible man should. Please, Master, I am completely absorbed by a question for which I have no answer. Help me, if it pleases you."

The Master, otherwise as still as a statue of granite, lifted one eye-brow with a tiny flick. He contemplated a few moments, then finally opened his mouth and said, "Well, then. What is the question whose lack of an answer so degrades your life?"

With ever-widening eyes, the student stood before the Master, spluttering, "Well ... ah ... um. Er, I mean ..."

"He does not know," the Master muttered to himself. "Very well, then. Here is what you must do: Go into the mountains and find a place to live. Contemplate the universe and your place in it. Do this for twelve months, no more. Then come and see me again."

So the student did as the Master advised. He traveled high into the mountains and found a suitable spot to set up camp. He made a small hovel to protect himself from the cold winter that was on its way, then he settled down with his notebook.

And waited. And waited. He waited, in fact, for six months before he started to have any doubts about whether he was going to meet with success. But he waited some more. After nine months, he became more alarmed, but still reasoned that he had some more time, so he continued to wait. But, after a full twelve months, he had come up with nothing inspiring. He knew neither the question nor the answer.

And so he returned to the Master.

"Master," he pleaded. "I have spent the last twelve months contemplating the universe and my place in it. And yet, I have not found the answer to my question, and, in fact, I have not even yet figured out the question! Please, Master, I remain completely absorbed. Help me, if it pleases you."

The Master sat motionless for a moment. Even his breathing was so slow and measured that the student had to look carefully to see evidence that he was alive. Finally, the Master opened his mouth the tiniest bit and said, "It is not uncommon that the strongest of trees grows the slowest at the start. So go back to your mountain. Find your place again and contemplate the depth of the oceans and the heights of the sky, and how you make your way between them. But spend no more than six months there. Then come and see me again."

So the student traveled back to his mountain retreat and settled in again as before.

And again he waited. And waited. He waited until three months had passed before he considered that he was not successful at finding either the question or the answer. But, he did not panic, and instead he waited until the full six months had passed with no inspired realisation.

And so he returned to the Master.

"Master," he begged. "I have spent another six months in contemplation of the depths of the ocean and the heights of the sky, and yet I still burn with the fever of an unknown question and its unknown answer. Please help me, if you so wish."

The Master, who had been sitting as still as the winter night's air, opened his eyes fully and turned to look at the student carefully from head to toe. He finally fixed on the student's eyes with his own and peered carefully into them for a moment. Then his gaze broadened to take in all the student's face. He spoke, "Extreme measures are required for you. Go back to the mountains for three months only. Contemplate this: When you next come to see me I will be wearing my sword, and I would be most unhappy to hear I wasted twenty-one months waiting for you to find enlightenment."

So the student traveled back to what had become his home in the mountains and settled back down into his routine of waiting for enlightenment to settle on him.

He contemplated the universe and his place in it for the first month.

He contemplated the depth of the oceans, the height of the sky, and his place between them for the second month.

Then he began to contemplate the fact he was one month from death at the hands of the Master's blade.

And then, two months and one day after arriving on the mountain, the student jumped up and ran all the way back down the mountain to the Master.

"Master, master!" he cried excitedly, "I have found the question to describe my problems ... and, more importantly, I have found the answer!"

The Master, who had been sitting with crossed legs upon the ground sprang to his feet and unsheathed his sword, all in one lighting-quick movement. With his sword lightly resting against the student's neck, the Master asked, "And what is this pearl of wisdom, this world-shattering, life-enriching, question and answer?"

"None of your business old man! Figure it out for yourself!"

The Master stepped back, re-sheathing his sword. "Very good, my son, very good."

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