Life, Psychology

Buddhify

20120114-181217.jpgI’ve been up for a bit of meditation for a while. But I didn’t fancy too much mumbo jumbo so I’ve dithered. I mentioned it to someone who’s origins are in the East and he smiled sagely and commended it. “Everyone should learn to control their mind.” he said. I said I’d try it when I have time. He smiled knowingly and offered “make the time”.

A friend put me onto ‘mindfulness’ before Christmas and suggested a CD. But that left me thinking where can I play a CD in peace in our house? Pondering this – as so often in modern life – I found a solution waiting for me in the Apple App Store: Buddhify.

Buddhify is a nicely designed no-nonsense ‘snack-sized’ introduction to ‘urban meditation’ which certainly works for me. On a train, yesterday, I did a short module designed for travel on ‘clarity’.

The idea, gently and melodiously articulated, was to step back from noises and lights and people and rattles and clunks and view them as a mental ‘firework display’. And one, which with training, you can observe with a certain amount of abstraction.

As the voice-over says, it’s interesting how our consciousness is ‘tugged’ from one thing to another: staccato sunlight shining low through trees, the heater blasting out under my feet, an itch behind my knee, my breathing, a person tapping on a table, the clatter of wheels on rails.

There are lot of mental fireworks going off all the time when you stop to’observe’ them – even when you’re not consciously thinking or doing anything. Little wonder it’s sometimes hard to relax.

But, in a matter of minutes, whether by breathing, watching the fireworks or noting that I live in a body, and noticing which bits of me are tense and which relaxed (I noticed bizarrely that my front teeth were my most relaxed bit once) these little Buddhify routines clear the head and calm the body and mind.

The tricky bit is finding a place and a time where it’s ok to close my eyes! Announcing you’re ‘off to meditate’ sounds a bit yogic. But slipping some iPhone earphones in is neutral enough. Well done Buddhify – a miniature, minor, modern marvel built on centuries old wisdom. Well worth a mindful if you have a smartphone.

Life, Psychology

Relevant Complexity 1) The Spice of Life

20120108-152605.jpgMy new theory of everything: all purpose and enjoyment in life is found in ‘relevant complexity’.

I came to the idea via the Hungarian American psychologist Mihili Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘flow’: that we achieve optimum experience when we meet considerable challenge with considerable skill. Or put another way – when we master complexity.

I propose, that, the value of doing something and the intrinsic enjoyment in doing it, lies in it having and creating further ‘relevant complexity’. Let’s prove the pudding with food.

Does relevant complexity describe our relationship with food? Yes, I think it does. I’ve started doing lots of cooking lately – not least Indian. I seem to really enjoy it. Why? It needs doing. I get a break from the kids. When I get it right I get positive feedback from the missus. And, I mostly quite enjoy eating what I cook.

Notwithstanding there are some great dishes which are very simple, most of what’s considered ‘tasty’ in the world’s cuisines involves blending different ingredients, tastes and textures in relevant complexity.

To many, too much of one, one that’s out of place or the wrong blend of ingredients creates irrelevant complexity – often simply nasty. In fact I’d argue that even the simplest ‘great’ foods rely on great ingredients – which are often very complicated to grow, make or rear, requiring optimum care and conditions.

As the scientific chef Heston Blumenthal points out, cooking is applied chemistry. The complexity comes in applying it to that most unpredictable of non-linear systems – human taste.

And tastes develop and mature with experience. Taste doesn’t stand still, it is cultivated and grows. Blame ‘flow’, if the challenge doesn’t move on we become bored.

So, I conclude the joy in making and eating food lies in creating, enjoying and cultivating a taste for ‘relevant complexity’. It’s the spice of food life. Mmmm.

Life

Pig Ignorant

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Chugging my way through the 400th Anniversary Edition of the King James Bible, I discover the narrative pace slackens consideerrraaaabbbbbllllyyyy towards the end of Exodus and the beginning of Leviticus.

Having knocked together the world and all that ‘creepeth’ on it in a few pages of Genesis, the fine detail and multiple repetitions of exactly how a Tabernacle should be built, the intricacies of priestly vestments and the finer points of ‘burnt’, ‘sin’, ‘meat’ (which isn’t) ‘waving’ and ‘heaving’ sacrifices are inescapably precise. And the punishments for waving what you should be heaving are heavy indeed.

Phew. Much like the Greek myths which are from a similar period in history, one senses a good deal of tradition, mythology, symbolism and practical wisdom merged together. Eating the meaty remnants of your ‘sin offering’ for two days is fine, but chew on it on the third day and you might well feel ‘unclean’ in what are often warm lands.

It is sometimes said that the Old Testament God is a fierce one. Indeed He describes Himself as ‘A jealous God’ during the Ten Commandments. But the precision of his strictures and fear of his wroth explains to me something I encountered when we lived cheek by jowl with a very Orthodox Jewish community in North London.

I think I knew that anything which doesn’t have both cloven hooves and chews cud is ‘unclean’ – pigs failing on cud. I wasn’t so clear it includes anything with paws. Our old dog used to like a curious sniff at passers-by – especially those wearing long black silk coats.

I always used to pull him close, but I now understand why the Hasidic Jews of Stamford Hill used to skirt and look terrified of him. Physical contact could have demanded a shower and a change of clothes.

I feel rather guilty, looking back, that I wasn’t more aware. I might not have known ’em, but the Old Testament rules are crystal clear for those who choose to follow them. Paws are out. People do live in myriad different ways