Abre los ojos

First of all, to those who follow me on twitter, sorry for that half-baked comment that I made. For those who missed it, this is what I wrote:

TGeorgeSand Feel like phasing out the mundane from my life. Is that possible?

...followed by...

TGeorgeSand BTW my "mundane phase out" plan has nothing to do with unfollowing or defriending. I may have to blog about what I meant (or just shut up).

So this is what I meant. I'll just ramble a bit about it and if it happens to gel with you, great. If not, then move along. There's really nothing to see here except an addle-minded ingénue (yeah, right).

Over the past several months, I've been fascinated by this notion of waking up. Not the kind of waking up you do every morning, but the kind of waking up that occurs when your senses feel enlivened or heightened as a child would respond when he first discovers the world or more importantly what happens when this occurs within your mind, heart or soul in a way that can alter the way that you look at life.

So rather than see a routine - for example, commuting to work - as mundane, it's becoming aware of the sensations of what it is to do such a thing. It could also be about listening to a friend, not in the half-assed way where you really want to turn the conversation around back to yourself, but in a way that fully engages your attention on her. It could be about approaching life in a fresh way and looking for elements that resonate with you or to find beauty in the ordinary.

Certainly there's the clinical aspect to this and according to the Mayo Clinic, keeping your mind sharp by doing different things prevents mental atrophy. But I suppose what I'm focused on is what will feed your soul.

Wouldn't that just make life a little more bearable? But not just that, wouldn't it make it chimerical? So to bring the comment full circle, what I meant about "phasing out the mundane," was really a call-to-action on my part to view life through a different lens and not always allow the automatic thoughts to take over or to zombie through life. This could mean exploring new places locally or abroad, meeting new people from different walks of life, sampling different cuisines from around the world, trying something new ... but in the end, whatever it is, it's about waking up and abre los ojos.


Punchlines
Well, my date was going just fine until she started Frenching her Yorkie. Now I guess I'll just have to play with my Puli.