I think, therefore...

I couldn’t resist a play on René Descartes well-known maxim: I think, therefore I am.

I think, therefore my mind is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Ideas that arise and pass. Thoughts that are relevant only for as long as I feed them with my attention. Thoughts that keep me in my head worrying about in the past or future rather than now, or now.

I’m reading Why mindfulness is better than chocolate by David Michie. The timing is perfect and I’m finding a lot of value in discovering or rediscovering the value of the pause between thoughts. It prompted this haiku this morning, and I’ve resolved to revisit my failed 2019 goal or writing one haiku each day. Perhaps modified to one each week to make it more achievable.

I think therefore I

am trapped in duality.

Thought dissolves, passes

It is my hope that this captures the way we, as humans, so easily fall into and ego and '“I” trap. The fixed ideas of who we are and how life should be, which - if we bother to look a little closer - change over time and aren’t as immutable as we like to think. And that life is precious and ephemeral.