With this rather lofty principle lodged firmly in my admittedly rather sleepy skull, I booted my computer and got to work. After a few minutes I realised that I needed a drink or all those lucid visions would end up as gasping, dry, parched images of myself evaporating in the sunlight like a vampire caught without his sunblock. The moment I opened the door one of my cats jumped into my room, purring it's face off and leaped onto the carpet rolling around in expectant tummy-rub flavoured ecstasy. He'd been waiting for me to arise, having probably heard my morning stirrings and thought that before he lost his momentum he'd jump straight into my busy, thirsty face.
I was partly amused and also mildly irritated... if I didn't crack on with some work I might lose my momentum entirely, but how could I not show that expectant little moggy some love?
Cue fuss.
And surely enough, I once again proved to myself that nature shows the way...
Digsy, in his excitement for immediate contact, and my initial reluctant reaction based upon a minor fear of lost productivity got me thinking about time and the way we see it in the modern world with regards to our work output. I don't need to go into any kind of rant about the way that our society demands more and more of our precious time and labour as recompense for it's false parenthood ministrations. Like all systems, the more time we devote to our society, the more it does for us. I think for most people this manifests itself as the desire to work harder and harder in order to accumulate more things to make themselves feel comfortable, without realising that comfort can lie irrespective of those crutches. Any time not spent focusing on this goal is considered to be wasted, or at best "leisure time", valued only lowly and as a matter of necessity with the overall goal of keeping one fit and happy for the days toil.
And so Digsy almost lost out here. He almost missed his fuss because there's a twitching, dying remnant of conditioning in my mind that tells me that to be unproductive is a sin. This is kind of true from many perspectives, but it's a matter of where your focus lies.
Suffice to say, after five minutes or so playing with the cat, the results were quite profound. One happy cat, and one enlightened Halford.
That short time I'd dedicated to the feeling of joy, both mine and his, shared, left me feeling elated and full of vigour for my coming projects. In my mind I'd transmuted five minutes of what could have been seen to be dead time, wasted on another creature who'd attached it's suckers vampire like into my precious wallet, into absolute gold.
Over the last six or seven years,starting after I first started to toy with meditation, I've enjoyed taking a long walk every day. Often, I'd finish work early or even put off my own plans and ambitions in order to make this walk. I often turn off my phone, stick a massive grin on my head and stroll around in the sunshine listening to good music, marvelling at flowers and clouds and the arses of the single mums I pass in the street. I'm generally just being happy. When I get home I've usually been out for a couple of hours. I've sculpted my working life around this walk, or other forms of meditation and experiential exercise because that desire to feel and realise those couple of hours of happiness has become so central to my being. I don't work often now. When I do work I like to finish early. I have become used to not having much money and relying on creativity in order to find expression, to attain the goals I want to achieve, and have also sacrificed that direct connection to the industrial world and it's population of working humans that most other people face, willing or not, on a daily basis.
Those two hours a day, when seen in financial terms, prevent me from making money. That's a given. Seen in artistic, "spiritual" and creative terms, and thus through to my own experience and understanding, those two hours really have shaped my life into who I am today. And since I feel like I've achieved a level of understanding about the world, and thus could potentially use those skills in any which way I choose (even finding a good job if I so desired), I consider these sacrifices minimal. Direct contact with nature brings understanding, of this I am sure.
My thoughts on this then are that what for one may appear to be a waste of time, unproductive, to another can be integral to their life. I can judge the results of my studies and labour, if you can even call it that, by the relative level of understanding and happiness I enjoy in the now.
In the time it's taken me to write this, my cat has been sitting next to me quietly, and I think happily. He's just stirring, and has now jumped off the bed and stuck his claws into my knee. A gentle reminder he want's playing with again. He's inspired me to write this blog, as well as motivated me to see the silver lining in the cloud again.
I'm already winning. And so is he.
