Just got to the hotel.. just enough time to showerand get to my meeting. More later !
-me
Greetings from somewhere over Pakistan.. We’re about 14 hours into our 19 hour trip and so far so good . Last night. I’d had a 7 hour layover at Newark and it passed quickly. I hung out mostly on the walkway behind the elevators to the train.. As I said last night, it’s clean, quiet and totally isolated. The only other person I saw up there last night was Jack who works on that floor. We talked for awhile. Nice guy.. thinking abut going into website design.
The plane boarded right on time at 11PM I managed to stay awake just long enough to eat… A good Indian meal, Dahl, a Paneer dish, fresh pratha, raita and chutney.. Yum !
Every meal so far on the plane has had some sort of ball things to eat.. Las nights were so sweet they made your teeth hurt
And even some of Vermont‘s Finest to remind me of home. (We saw it here last time too)
I also managed to wear about 10 percent of my dinner… I’m quite fragrant now
I fell asleep right after dinner and slept until we were over England. Singapore air coach seats are almost as nice as most other carriers business class.. and I have a free seat next to me. So I’m pretty comfortable. .. There’s a huge number of videos and music you can watch / hear.. but I’ve basically been reading and listening to my own music.
I’ve loved the thinking time on the plane. I’ve loved staring at the seatback
I also finished listening to the Echkardt Toole book called ‘The New Earth’. I found it very powerful. The central thesis of the book is that all of mankind.. actually all of the cosmos is awakening to it’s own consciousness as part of its own evolution. We are part of that consciousness so we’re doing it as well.. in fact, we’re the instruments of it. He does a really good job of describing that awakening.. it happens gradually… it happens when you start to realize that the voice in your head.. the ego that drives all your wishes and expectations for the future and your regrets from your past is not really who you are.. It’s the consciousness below the ego that is you.. Further you can awaken that consciousness to realize that separation.. ie. You are not that voice in your head. That ego is a construction that lives on fictions created to give itself definition. It feeds on expectations of ourselves that we pick up from other society. It drives wanting, greed, regretting, pride and always leads to some sort of suffering. Once you really get that, you can begin to free yourself form living only for future gain/happiness, health etc.. or from living life by reliving either good or painful memories .. When you detach from both the past and the future.. you stay here. In the now.. Right where I am when I write this.. and you are when you read this. Tolle describes this whole transformation through examples from many religious and philosophical traditions through intense lifelong meditation. .. All major religions recognize the wisdom someone gets from separating from the ego.. He describes how people come to that moment of awakening.. Some slowly after years of disciplined training of the mind.. some suddenly after a great revelation.. or a great personal tragedy. On that point everything Tolle says resonates so much to me. Sam’s death has fundamentally altered the way that we look at the world. The detachment we have from the past and the future really keeps pushing us back to that awakened moment in the now. It’s the only way we can live.. And.. that’s a very, very cool thing.
Anyway.. If the last paragraph sounds like new age gobbledygook to you.. I suggest that you might not like the book. If instead you sort of get what I’m trying to say.. I suggest you get the book and read it soon.
Ah.. where was I ? Oh yeah on a plane over Pakistan. Since finishing the book, I’ve dozed on and off several times ..
and started at the seat back
and stared at the air vents
Which then started staring back at me !
I watched the flight map as the plane took us over Vienna where I used to live
Then on towards Iraq and Iran
Note Sam in the corner
And Afghanistan
You look down and would never know of the strife and suffering that’s going on down there now. There by the grace of 3 miles go I. It is an interesting perspective to note that from this short distance above them. Whatever they/we are fighting about doesn’t come though.. It doesn’t mean much up here.. How can our perspective on ideas be so warped that we’d be willing to kill or die for them like this ?
You see.. you can get pretty philosophical when you don’t move or talk for 19 hours.
Did I mention my great seat back ?
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OK… time for me to try some more sleep.. More from Singapore this evening. G’nite (or day ?) all.. Good day Sam.
-me
p.s. Gabe.. guess what it’s going to be the Durian festival when I’m there. Want me to bring some of it back fro you / everyone ask Gabe just how much he lovvvvves durian fruit . (Hint.. it looks like a cactus, has the consistency of custard and tastes like sewage… Really good sewage, though.
