How I spent "Holy Week"

[db05]

My apologies for posting on the threads and then disappearing all of a sudden. I'm back from a five-day Information Fast. Any more and I might not have come back the same person.

For five days I was a different person. It seemed I was a samurai guarding a flock of Christians on a pilgrimage. In reality I was just following my mom around as always but this time my mind took on a slowww pace, and a kind of sharp steel gaze. This is a trip that doesn't happen every day. And without consciously trying, I took it all in.

No deep reading/ thinking for five days. No piano for three days. How did I survive? I photocopied three pieces and studied the patterns/ fingering. I had recordings handy for only 2 out of the 3. I practiced them for an hour each, in 10 minute intervals. I kept at it despite knowing it would help much my piano playing. Without a piano/ keyboard, the sound and mechanics couldn't be checked.

There was a lot of sitting around, but I had to be ready to get up and walk any time. I spent Thursday and Friday in a province 6 hours away from home. Suddenly I was that much farther from worry, confusion, questions and cares. So what if I had to walk around with the procession for 1 1/2 hour? I could have gone on for 3 hours, maybe more. Not because I had stamina, but because I just didn't care if I collapsed on the road. Because I wasn't thinking much, only "that march beat is awesome".

I came home this morning. In a few hours, "the list" came back - things I have to do, things I have to figure out how to do, and things I simply want to think about... I used to be comfortable thinking 100 thoughts/ minute but now it bothers me. I'm an information monster. Normally I eat questions 5 times a day. And it's made my life difficult at times.

I thought fasting would be torture, but it ended up as a vacation. Now normal life seems to have lost its shine. There were a few other surprises too. We expected to wait in a long line for the bus to and from the province. Neither happened. Just when our group was willing to wait, we found a van willing to carry us to the destination. I thought it was going to be hot and tiring during the procession, but it got cooler and I was energized.

Now that I am "home", that samurai is gone and I'm just a weakling, tired from a long trip. I realized that an idealized version of me exists, but outside of normal life. Maybe if I could tap into that, I can discover something... the question is how to bring it back with me.

It's almost 2 am here. I'm not sleepy but I should go, and add to this later if necessary. In the meantime, how was your Thursday-Saturday? Anything special?

Again, my apologies for my recent posts - some were plain off the mark and I don't want to continue. I'll leave the piano talk to the better pianists.

[richard_strauss]

I will dismiss the inessential and answer what you're REALLY asking. You cannot force yourself to change without a process, and that takes time. In the meantime, however, why don't you focus in a stress relief activity (for me it would be laughing at Harold Bloom while reading "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human" or laughing with Bertrand Russell while reading almost anything he wrote...) it shouldn't be too hard to go back to the way things were if you take it with good humor.

[db05]

Interesting. I wasn't REALLY asking anything. Problematic problems like these, I prefer to set aside than thinking about them. Writing helps to let go.

It's true, I need better stress relief. I don't know why you consider Russell humorous, since I've read some serious stuff by him. Hmmm.

Hmmmmmmm.

Change, processes. It could be done, but is it really advisable to reduce thinking to one or two parts at a time? I could cut off huge chunks of information if need be. Burn the books! Even music books, burn them all and learn everything by ear, and trial and error. Life would be simpler... maybe.

A better and more concise way to word that entire post was: I think I get now why people get so hooked on religion. Or schooling. Any tradition, for that matter. It gives structure to an otherwise random life. If you can learn to follow a religion faithfully, no questions asked, there will be less surprises. You can "let go and let god" and trust you'll go to heaven when you die. No existential crises. Be saintly enough and you won't even worry about money or food.

But I just had to step away from that structure and try to create my own "god". A different way of thinking, hence a totally different life. Very random. I'm often told that I think too much. But what is the alternative? Following the beat of someone else's drum. Or going into silence.

But now it's time to laugh at myself.  hahahahaha

[richard_strauss]

Russell tends to be really ironic (most of the time not in a very obvious way), that's something I enjoy about his books. However, when you talk about biblioclasm it reminds me of Don Quixote a little bit or probably "The Name of Rose" but, ultimately, to Huxley's "Brave New World" and the reason why it was forbidden to read Shakespeare. Heinrich Heine once wrote "Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen." ("That was just a prelude. Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.") and, even though you didn't actually mean that comment as anything else but a joke, this is a form of censorship often practised by totalitarism (the Nazi's book burning, the Inquisition's burning of maltese poetry, etc).

Anyway, it's good to know that writing helps you let go. Are you going to "let God" too? - Even if it is Abraxas (when you said you'd create your own god it made me think of Herman Hesse) -