YogaDoc

Today is the first day since I don't know when in which I've had time to do nothing of consequence and have no reason to feel guilty for it. For the past nearly seven years, I've known only deadlines chronically hanging over my head. And then there's the great void that's called the dissertation -- no deadlines whatsoever, just you facing the blank page everyday and knowing that if you don't do something today, the consequences of your procrastination will bite you tomorrow (and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and still another tomorrow...). It sure feels strange to have nothing better to do other than things I want to or desire to do. Today I can see to the real degree that I've become time obsessed. In the next several weeks I plan to allow myself to experience the daily unfolding of time without that wormy sensation that I perpetually lack it. I hate the feeling that time is never enough. I'm absolutely certain that carrying this time-guit around is how most of us shorten our lives. It's this guilt over time that shortens our experiences in the actual moments that we're experiencing them. One eye is always on the clock, and that's a nasty habit to break. The quote below captures one of my deepest yearnings through most of grad school. Ironically, in grad school I just wanted some time and the mental space to think but rarely was there any:

Clarity can exist only when there is freedom to observe, when one is capable of looking, observing and watching. That is only possible when there is complete, total freedom. Otherwise, there is always distortion in our observation.

                                                                                                                               -- J. Krishnamurti

My new blog seems to want to develop a theme -- Time. Time, in all its prosaic and profound dimensions, is worth contemplating. I, as most people in our hurry-up modern societies, never seem to have enough of it. As in this moment wherein I don't have enough time to write more. But I leave you with yet another quote, one that I stumbled across this morning while reading the New York Times' Arts section over my cereal. It is about Time, but whether it is profound or prosaic that's up to you . . . 

"Don't serve the time; let the time serve you." -- Paris Hilton, ex-jailbird, on Larry King Live

Blogging takes up a lot of time. As my debut blog, I shall let others do the talking for me. Here are a few of my favourite quotes . . .

The practice of Buddhism can be summarized in the short phrase, "If you can't help others, at least don't harm them..."       --The Dalai Lama

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasure of others.   --Bertrand Russell

We are now in the age of Bush, Cheney and DeLay, small men committed to the concentration of big bucks in the hands of the fortunate few.  --Bob Herbert, "A Radical in the White House," NYT Op-Ed, 18 Apr 05

The intermediate stage between socialism and capitalism is alcoholism.    --Norman Brenner

The reason that academics want and need their complaints is that it is important to them to feel oppressed, for in the psychic economy of the academy, oppression is the sign of virtue.                                                                                                       --Stanley Fish, The Unbearable Ugliness of Volvos

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.   --Fred Allen

You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.  --Vicomte de Chateaubriand

Arjuna:

O Vishnu, I can see your eyes shining; with open mouth, you glitter in an array of colours, and your body touches the sky. I look at you and my heart trembles; I have lost all courage and all peace of mind.

When I see your mouths with their fearful teeth, mouths burning like the fires at the end of time, I forget where I am and I have no place to go. O Lord, you are the support of the universe; have mercy on me!

I see all the sons of Dhritarashtra; I see Bhishma, Drona, and Karna; I see our warriors and all the kings who are here to fight. All are rushing into your awful jaws; I see some of them crushed by your teeth. As rivers flow into the ocean, all the warriors of this world are passing into your fiery jaws; all creatures rush to their destruction like moths into a flame.

Tell me who you are, O Lord of terrible form. I bow before you; have mercy! I want to know who you are, you who existed before all creation. Your nature and workings confound me.

Sri Krishna:

I am time, the destroyer of all; I have come to consume the world. Even without your participation, all the warriors gathered here will die.

                                  --The Bhagavad Gita (translated by Eknath Easwaran)