Routine

"Simply because you can breathe, doesn't mean you're alive or that you really lived...." -Rise Against

First I'd like to draw your attention to a comment that Drew left, regarding the scientific lameness of routine:

http://sketchcase.blogspot.com/2005/01/end-is-nigh-upon-us.html#comments

This got me thinking a lot, and I mean, I already consider routine to be the mother of all depression and feelings of being jaded, but let me share a story first and see what sort of thoughts that generates.

Spring, 2003

I'd had a talk with Mitch about Masons and decided to research the conspiracies about them, on the internet. Weird shit, that's for sure, but check it our for yourself. Feeling as if I'd pierced through some veil of truth about the world, I must've been extremely hungry for knowledge. I came across an article titled "Conscious Dreaming and Controlled Hallucinations". It was an excellent article put forth by some underground psychologist that was likely shunned by his colleagues....

http://www.totse.com/en/drugs/psychedelics/167000.html

It was very long, but after reading it for probably 30 min, I was very stoked on trying some of the techniques. I believe at this point, I'd dabbled with meditation, but didn't really understand it fully. So instead of just going to bed after I shut the computer off, I sat on my pillow and attempted to meditate and practice the visualization techniques. All the reading I'd done, must've primed me, because after only 5 minutes, my mind had cleared itself and my sense of sight was beginning to fall off. I began to see visuals, although certainly not very vivid ones, of a cartoon-like man, alternating between being VERY comically fat and excessively skinny. He would just stretch himself in front of me. I was totally enthralled and once that faded, I began, for the first time, to contemplate the infinite darkness around me. It was night, there were blankets over the windows, and I'd even turned my clock upside down. Anyways, long story short, I experienced all these new and exciting things, so that when I came out of the meditation, the last thing on my mind was sleep. At this point it was about 3:30am on a school night. But adhering to the usual routine didn't appeal to me in the slightest. When I came out of what I now consider to be my first authentic meditation, everything seemed slowed down. When I'd turn my head to look around, I found that I was in now hurry and would slowly turn. Thoughts were almost non-existent, and everything I saw had this strange visual quality to it that I couldn't even attempt to put into words. I was fascinate by everything and decided I'd go for a walk. This was when I was living in town, but regardless, I never really went for walks. EVER. Drove everywhere. So I was breaking routine left, right, and center. I put on some clothes, grabbed my pipe, and wandered up town, without any sense of time or urgency at all. I walked the streets of Golden, simply observing everything as if for the first time. Not only had I never taken the time to truly observe my surroundings, but it was now about 4am during the week, so not much was going on at all. Very peaceful. I walked into the park by the bridge, sat on a bench and just observed the occasional passerby, making connections that I'd have never made in my normal thought patterns. All sorts of ideas filled my mind, yet it wasn't cluttered. At some point, I smoked a bowl in the middle of the intersection, so that was pretty neat to say the least. I wandered past the Mason building and slowly made my way back to my house, arriving home at about 4:30am.

I learned a lot that night about routine and how many of us so often are just drifting by without any real sense of anything really. Trapped in our own endless stream of thoughts, we are essentially disconnected from the world around us. Procrastination and laziness are the order of the day. We never truly comprehend the bigger picture and realize that somewhere inside us, a clock is ticking down the days. Although quite the opposite can happen, where we are so gripped by the fear of death that we don't allow ourselves to ever truly live. Don't live in fear of your own potential to enjoy and love life. Break through the monotony of work, school, depression, boredom, clublife, or whatever. Do something brand new. If you don't usually walk, go for a walk RIGHT NOW, don't even finish reading this. If you normally stay on the computer till you're so braindead at 3am that all you can do is collapse into bed, then shut off the computer at 1am tonight, and try meditating. Try cooking something from scratch. At least make a salad, or, if you've got the ingredients and a recipe, make some soup. Smoke weed everyday? Save your money for once and rent something like Waking Life, Gods Gambling & LSD, Baraka, any of the Qatsi trilogy (Koyaanisqatsin, Powaqqatsi, and Naqoyqatsi). How many books did you read last year, and how different was each one from the one before it? READ MORE. Listen to the same old CDs over and over and over? Download Limewire and check out some of the music I recommend, or download Soulseek and browse my massive library (it's all in marked folders, couldn't be easier). Tired of vanilla sex? Two worse for ya.... Kama Sutra. Normally work out at the *shudder* gym? Go for a run outside. Hate the winter? Bundle up and go make a snow angel. There's SO many ways to break routine. Use candles one night instead of lights, take the bus instead of driving, call someone you've lost contact with, or even just sleep naked for a change. When was the last time you stayed up till dawn and saw the sunrise? Think about that one.

The way we spend our days... is the way we spend our years.

I don't normally go for a walk at 1am, but that's exactly why i'm gonna do it.