Zen and the Art of Everything

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Photo credit: JasonDGreat / Foter / CC BY

Photo credit: JasonDGreat / Foter / CC BY

Zen and the Art of Everything. Writing a blog post? Designing the Macintosh computer (Steve Jobs reference)? Sure, why not! The idea for this post was concieved while sitting in dense DC traffic a few weeks back.  You may be familiar with the book, “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig. It is about a motorcycle trip that a father and son take and essentially uses motorcycle repair as a metaphor for the different facets of life.  For me, that day (like so many others), traffic was causing an enormous amount of stress.  In trying to eliminate that stress, I thought to myself comically,  ZEN AND THE ART OF SITTING IN TRAFFIC! I started laughing. How silly? I honestly have somewhat limited knowledge (trying to learn more) about actual Zen Buddhism (I did take a college course on Buddhism, but we were not exactly meditating).  Is there really a way to be calm and happy sitting in traffic? If the Buddha himself were in my car with me, would he be just as jolly and calm as he is often depicted, cruising at a cool 2 MPH while a chorus of asshole drivers lay on their horns in perfect harmony? Hard to believe but after all, he is the Buddha, right? In continuing this thought process, I began thinking about stress reduction in general as a way to prevent myself from becoming too stressed out about the things that I cannot change–  such as traffic. How? Cue to the Buddhist Monk who stoically and condescendingly mutters “mindfulness.” Read More →

Green Living Through Organic Intelligence

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Living green virtually applies to all areas of our existence, with the root of this effort lying in our concerns for good health.  With the status of our health the driving concern for smart living, it naturally follows that we should work to protect the environment and our food sources.  Just as the neglect and abuse of our bodies has been a gradual process, so will a turnaround in bad habits to reverse this situation be gradual also.

I found an interesting article on organic intelligence, which promotes teaching children how to live smart.  Written by Lloyd Glauberman, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, this writing first acknowledges the slow moving pandemic of obesity, especially in children, and its medical consequences.  The author admonishes that this problem needs to be solved literally at the beginning of life.  Dr. Glauberman explains how infants respond to internal cues, such as hunger, by crying when needing to be fed and turning the head away when satiated.  However, as we age, we are bombarded with so much external stimulation that our internal cues become desensitized and amnesic.

With the incorporation of organic intelligence modeling starting at the preschool level, we can teach children to recognize and label internal cues.  A curriculum that teaches and reinforces nutritional value, food quality versus quantity and the need to maintain a healthy body weight and image can be introduced in all academic curricula.  Parents can reinforce these concepts at home through conversation and in family participation in snack selection and meal planning and preparation.

Organic intelligence is a simple concept to understand.  It is based on a theory of “mindfulness” as opposed to “mindlessness”.  As a foundation for a “healthy personal ecology”, organic intelligence teaches us to live green, be green.