Mindful Sweeping

July 5th, 2010
Mindfulness in every day activities makes us aware of life’s constraints and limitations. It emphasizes the value of each activity we do in its fundamentals. It is in the fundamentals that timeless creativity takes birth. The iPhone’s voicemail feature is an example of finding creativity in fundamental functions.

Technology cloaks the interface between the human touch and the fundamental task. This is not always a bad thing of you consider jobs in the foundry, mining, waste management etc.
Tea bags take the human touch out of brewing tea with tea leaves. The best tea I have ever had was at a tea garden in North Eastern India and it didn’t come from a tea bag. A motor vehicle takes the human touch out of commuting. Rarely do people want to walk or ride a bicycle to a business even though most commutes in USA are less than 2 miles.
A vacuum cleaner is guilty of taking the human touch out of sweeping floors. I have hardwood floors, so a broom is more than sufficient to remove dust, immaterial of what swiffer commercials say. I take a broom, start at one corner of the room and methodically sweep to the other corner, collecting the dust and pet hair in its way. Staying mindful about sweeping helps you not miss any spots. Not rushing through it ensures a high quality job.
As a bonus, a slow mindful sweeping job is very relaxing. It slows the pace down to a constant rhythm forcing the mind to focus on the immediate present. Having a small apartment does not make it a bothersome chore.
My greyhound is deathly scared of the broom. This is the only drawback.
Mindfulness in every day activities makes us aware of life’s constraints and limitations. It emphasizes the value of each activity we do in its fundamentals. It is in the fundamentals that timeless creativity takes birth. The iPhone’s voicemail feature is an example of finding creativity in fundamental functions.

Technology cloaks the interface between the human touch and the fundamental task. This is not always a bad thing of you consider jobs in the foundry, mining, waste management etc.

Tea bags take the human touch out of brewing tea with tea leaves. The best tea I have ever had was at a tea garden in North Eastern India and it didn’t come from a tea bag. A motor vehicle takes the human touch out of commuting. Rarely do people want to walk or ride a bicycle to a business even though most commutes in USA are less than 2 miles.

A vacuum cleaner is guilty of taking the human touch out of sweeping floors. I have hardwood floors, so a broom is more than sufficient to remove dust, immaterial of what swiffer commercials say. I take a broom, start at one corner of the room and methodically sweep to the other corner, collecting the dust and pet hair in its way. Staying mindful about sweeping helps you not miss any spots. Not rushing through it ensures a high quality job.

As a bonus, a slow mindful sweeping job is very relaxing. It slows the pace down to a constant rhythm forcing the mind to focus on the immediate present. Having a small apartment does not make it a bothersome chore.

My greyhound is deathly scared of the broom. This is the only drawback.

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11 Things you can do to reduce dependency on Oil

June 22nd, 2010

We are all bothered by the recent oil spills. Spills have been happening for a while (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listofoil_spills). This time, it hit close to home and in a large scale. Popularity of social media also exposed it to more people.

Oil turbo charged the industrial revolution. With discovery of more efficient methods of generating energy than coal and the invention of plastics, the byproducts of oil have been a key player in shaping the face of society we see today. From the more common gasoline, diesel and natural gas to the byproducts like acetone (nail polish remover), oil is a part of every one’s life.

We use oil from the moment we wake up. That alarm clock that wakes us up, the coffee pot, the coffee and bagel transported on a truck, commute to work in a car, the computer made from plastic, jobs creating product that need transportation, foods transported to our lunch rooms and dinner tables using gasoline, sunglasses, shoes… The list is endless. Sadly, some of this list is inevitable to achieve the basic nessisities of the world’s population.

The one thing everyone can do to reduce the possibility of disasters like the gulf oil spill is to use less.

  1. Buy clothing and shoes made from sustainable materials
  2. Buy locally made products
  3. Be a minimalist and buy/use less ’stuff’ to begin with. Reduce!
  4. Eat locally grown foods (shop at farmers markets)
  5. Buy raw foods in bulk and learn to store them. Buy less processed foods, even if they are cheaper
  6. Repair things
  7. Reuse and Repurpose before recycling
  8. Do a job that creates a product of intellectual value, not just a trinket to sell
  9. Sell your car or just drive less
  10. Ride a bicycle as transportation, not just recreation
  11. Use Mass Transit
I live car free and commute on a 125 cc motorcycle or bicycle. Florida summers bring in rain every afternoon. It makes me think about buying a car everyday. Then I see pictures of the spill or my savings account and it all makes sense.

Unless you live in Jacksonville FL, mass transit is fairly easy to use. Bus service from my apartment to my job (14 miles one way ) is at a frequency of 1 hour or more and takes longer than a bicycle ride.

“There are no shortcuts to a place worth going” -author unknown

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Email Habits – learning from camping

June 2nd, 2010
I went camping for the first time at Suwannee Valley Camp in White

Springs FL. Car camping is fairly effortless since one has the luxury or
carrying an extra blanket and pillows. The part of the camp ground
was devoid of utilities and I had to rely on the main camp buildng for
power, wi-fi and bathroom facilities.
AT&T has no 3G coverage in White Springs. Edge takes longer for data
transfer and more battery life. Being on a minimalist overdrive, I had
brought only one pair of shorts and washed one set of clothes over the
trip. I further pledged to keep data usage to a minimum by switching
email from hourly push updated to manual only.
Friday through Sunday, I proceeded to immerse myself in the fantastic
folk sounds of guitars, banjos and harmonicas at the Florida Folk
Festival. Everytime I used the phone to take a pircture or tweet (using
twitterlink), the Mail app showed no emails (since it has to be opened
to update). This kept the phone usage to a minimum. Feedtwit sent me
mentions as text messages.
I checked emails once a day in the evening while charging it. Life was
uninterrupted.
I am not going to change the manual email update setting. Life is
more peaceful this way.
I went camping for the first time at Suwannee Valley Camp in White Springs FL. Car camping is fairly effortless since one has the luxury or carrying an extra blanket and pillows. The part of the camp ground was devoid of utilities and I had to rely on the main camp buildng for power, wi-fi and bathroom facilities.

AT&T has no 3G coverage in White Springs. Edge takes longer for data transfer and more battery life. Being on a minimalist overdrive,  I switched email from hourly push updated to manual only.

Friday through Sunday, I proceeded to immerse myself in the fantastic folk sounds of guitars, banjos and harmonicas at the Florida Folk Festival. I rode my xtracycle from stage to stage. Every time I used the phone to take a picture, check the weather or tweet (using twitterlink), the Mail app showed no emails (since it has to be opened to update). This kept the phone usage to a minimum. Feedtwit sent me mentions as text messages.

I checked and processed emails once a day in the evening while charging it. Life was uninterrupted.

Technology sometimes makes us do more things. We should hack technology to make life simpler. I am not going to change the manual email update setting. Life is more peaceful this way.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

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