Existential bells.

In retirement I spend a lot of time footering. This is not of necessity bad.  It leaves space for serendipity to kick in. But this is not guaranteed. It is said that ‘Fortune favours the prepared mind’.  Plans can be made.  Should they be?

Options range from detailed to-do-lists that are linked to the clock, through to being with the monkey mind that goeth where it listeth. There can be 6 to 9 for getting ready, 9 to 5 for work, 5 to 10 for me and us, and from 10 to 6 for sleep.

Modern cultures instil time consciousness. Time is not to be wasted. Wage slaves must meet high standards of quality x quantity and thus be acceptably productive. In preparation for this the school bell rings every 40 minutes for 10 years and habituates the uniformed youth to passing time in regularised institutions. 

I was a student for 19 years and a teacher for 11 years. That was about 30 years of living in 40 minute chunks. But I gave up on classroom commitment and worked for about 10 years in government offices where there were no bells. For the last phase of my working life I was a freelance, plain language editor. This involved logging my hours of work so I would know how much to charge the clients.

In retirement I am no longer a wage slave. I have pensions and savings to see me through. I am free to do whatever I want. But what is on the to-do-list, why this rather than that, and, crucially, who is the ‘I’ that wants? 

My ‘what’ continues to be the process of changing minds. This involves ongoing study of brain science, evolutionary psychology, mindfulness meditation, and a sprinkling of ideas from other disciplines. 

It was a mix of nature, nurture and serendipity acting in my times and places that created my illusory ‘I’, caused me to be suspicious of it, and drives me to revalue the unconscious. 

There is aspiration to reject conscious thinking and to let the unconscious be in the driver’s seat. A lot of high level stuff gets done in non-egoic mode. Presently this includes doodles, blog posts, sound engineering, reading non-fiction, and meditating. 

There is also ‘low’ level domestic stuff in the house and garden. Much of this is done non-egoically but I feel that it uses time which could be better used on the higher stuff. Note in passing that a fair bit of time is spent on the internet in the morning and on TV in the evening. I tend to view this as ‘cheating’ through surrender of attention to the media people.

I am aware of the options ranging from (a) joining a monastery where the higher stuff is touted on a 24/7 timetable through to (b) being a simple minded consumer of nick nacks touted though the internet by the media.

I aspire to be mindful of what is going on but I fall short. Too much non egoic footering with retro-planning after the event. Existential soft rock is a cop out. Hey ho!