Just Harvest

Walking into the cafeteria styled space, I felt intimidated. Though the Stevenson students made up for a majority of the volunteers, the idea of talking with people whom I didn't know and whom were homeless made me nervous. What if I said the wrong thing? What if I ran out of things to talk about? What if I offend them? These questions floated around in my head as I adorned an apron and manned my station.

As people filed through the doors, I began to dish out menus and conversation, my nerves eased. I was surprised that time progressed the table a had picked to personally converse with was full of generally well read mean and women who were able to recommend books of a wide array to me. We discussed environmental issues, books, movies other topics that were not as difficult as I thought they would be. Coming in, I had made assumptions that being homeless equated being uneducated, but that was absolutely untrue.

As the room got more full, we began to serve meals. Though I didn't necessarily have time to have heart to hearts with the people eating,I still felt that I could tell people how much I appreciated being here by giving them a smile and, "Enjoy!" as I handed them their meal. 

By the time the room cleared out my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. I had this light feeling in my chest, a natural high, you could call it. I felt as if I could do anything, climb a mountain, saving a cat from a burning building, or even take over Atlas's job! I had an unbelievable sense of accomplishment that showed from my inability to stop smiling to my continual mentioning of the people I met because To me it really 'just' a harvest, it was so much more!

Lorax v.s. The Once-ler (A Tale of Sociological Mindfulness)

Once upon a time there was a man who disregarded all paths of mindfulness in order to pursue his goal of the thneed. The thneed we speak of is made from the tufts of a Trufula tree. These trees support a lively habitat for various bears, odd birds, and singing fish. Their fruits give nutrients and their treetops give homes to the nests of the birds. When the Once-ler enters this forest he doesn't take the time to understand the life these creatures have there, or how their form of society works. The Once-ler barges in, picks up an axe and just starts swinging. If he had been sociologically mindful he would have seen the havoc he was wreaking on the habitat of these animals. The Lorax is then summoned to prevent any further damage to come to the forest. Without the forest there would be no homes, no shelter, no food and the whole area would die. The Once-ler only sees great big Trufula trees of cash. By being sociologically mindful he could have weighed the cost of decimating the land around him versus make a piece of clothing no one really even needed. By being sociological mindful he would have made the right choice and just walked away.

Slippery Slope of Sociological Mindfulness

Schwalbe describes sociological mindfulness as appreciation of other's unique qualities that were formed by the way they were raised, the struggles they endured, and the ideas and beliefs of those that surrounded them. It is the understanding of this uniqueness and the courtesy to alter behavior based on others because our actions inadvertently effect a large number of people. Reading about sociological mindfulness helped me to see a parallel in my parent's own teachings. Both my mother and father drilled into my head that every action you make effects people every where no matter how small you think a decision is or how minor a comment may be. Although I try, I have a lot of difficulty implicating this into my own life. I am completely aware of how my actions effect others but sometimes I choose to ignore. Maybe because it's too painful. Maybe because my own emotion are getting in the way. But for whatever reason, I ignore it.

Maybe that's why when it comes down to it, people ignore what's right in order to get what they want. The middle aged man refuses to give up his last seat on the life raft for the young mother. The son yells at his hard working mother. The rushing car cuts off the student driver on his way to work. All these things people do knowing that there are better, more mindful ways to act. People choose to ignore them. This style of action took the stage when the class partook in the "Life Boat" simulation. After our fictitious boat crash, each student was given a different part, and we were meant to vote off 7 of our 16 passengers because the life boat was only designed to hold 9. As the debate began, the first person to come under fire, was the overweight passenger. With no mindfulness for how the conversation made the person feel, we attacked the issue of weight on a small vessel or the issue of rations for a person with a larger diet. We spoke of the benefits of keeping this passenger on and of kicking him off. After choosing to kick him off seeing as the risks out weighed the benefits, we moved onto our next passenger. This is where whatever sociological mindfulness we were still clinging onto was thrown out the window.

As the witch hunt progressed, the next to fall under fire was a Navy Quarter Master. The others on the small life raft went right for the most obvious reason that this person was "expendable" enough to no longer deserve life, the immobility of her hands. The mob pushed on the points that as she couldn't use her hands, what use would she be? This was where mindfulness completely disappeared. Although she was a part of the Navy and therefore could help in any navigational attempts, the inability to use her hands made her less useful than an able bodied person. The others lack of mindfulness made kicking a married mother or four off the boat that much easier. Though, after put myself in their shoes I would have made the same decision. In order to survive, able bodies people were of higher importance.

Given the situation, I realized in life and death some people will take the chance to hold on to their mindfulness and some will let go.

The Art of Doing Nothing

If Sun Tzu had written the Art of Doing Nothing I wonder how differently the world would have evolved. 

I left my house Saturday morning at 9:00 and ventured out into the world of overpriced coffee and two tailed mermaids. Sitting at Starbucks, It took me a sold ten minutes to clear my mind. Every time I tried to reach a point of zen, my thoughts would run back to something that I did earlier on in the day, how people would react to my silence, and even what I was going to eat for dinner. When I came to understand what it really meant to clear one's mind, it was shocking that I as hard as I tried, I couldn't do it. There was always a song playing on a loop in my brain or a round of images circling through my head. Sitting at a table close to the door, I was cast a mixture of glances from onlookers, ranging from confused to annoyed. While people milled in and out, I just sat there looking around with no phone, no drink, no headphones, nothing out on the table. The people sitting in the cafe looked over their shoulders at me, waiting for a sign of whether I was waiting for someone, playing on my phone under the table, just doing something. People were perplexed and put off at the sight of someone who wasn't being constantly stimulated by some form of technology. I felt as though I stuck out like a sore thumb.

When a "normal" person sits by themselves somewhere in silence, they are usually fidgeting with something. I believe that society sees people who don't feel the need to always be staring at a screen to be out of place and weird. What about people makes them feel so uncomfortable by themselves that they feel the need to always look absorbed in something tangible? Why can't we just be absorbed in thought? I think if zen was promoted more in society, the world would come to see that being in your own bubble of thoughtlessness is restorative and not to be considered odd just because society has deemed it so. 

People quote the Art of War all the time. So if Sun Tzu had changed his topic, would the world today be so disturbed and uncomfortable at the sight for doing nothing? Or would it be considered a norm?