Tannishblog

This is my first post on my new toy: a Compaq notebook! I’m such a geek, but a poor one, so I mostly make due with hand-me-down computers that I take apart and put together again for kicks. There’s only three in our household (not counting our cats) and we have 7 working computers of various vintages – including an old Compaq desktop model with a (wow!) 400 MHz processor. I just can’t bear to throw out the old tech, especially when I consider how toxic for landfills the stuff is.

Getting a new computer is like buying a new car, exciting at fires, one just wants to drive around in it, eschewing all responsibilities. But with a laptop there’s the phantom excuse that is it a tool for work. That is why I got this one: My new job has me on the road a lot, and I’m trying to create a mobile office. My company is in the construction business, and as such they aren’t as techno-savvy as I would prefer, so I was told emphatically they wouldn’t be getting me a laptop. Being the resourceful (and a bit too defiant) person I am, I got my own.

My wife cautions me about the hazards of being independent like this: how other people may become suspicious, or begrudge me somehow. I find this weird, as I’m only trying to maximize me effectiveness on the job. To provide myself the tools I need to become more efficient, save aggravation and improves my job performance. To do so with my own money should show my employers how willing I am to go the extra mile. But I concede that others won’t see this; they’ll misinterpret my actions and I’ll pay the price for their misunderstanding.

This explains why I have an inherent distrust of people.

But, I’m going to use this new tool to make my job easier, so I need to spend less time at it and more time with my family. My non-computer coworkers won’t understand, perhaps, I’ll just have to deal with that. (sigh)

I never know what I’m going to write about as I fire up the blank word processor template, yet I almost always end up sharing my philosophy. A few topics are taboo to me: my career frustrations; problems in the workplace; person minutiae, to name just three. Overall, when I find blogs that express personal sentiments I quickly click through; voyeur, I am not.

So that leave the impersonal from which to draw what inspiration I can. Politics, philosophy, religion… Of political blogs, mine lacks energy. I am neither so involved as to meticulously research my topic du jour, nor am I so rabid as to foam-fleck my keyboard. I try to be thoughtful, reasoned and circumspect. Religion, the eternal flame of issues, is a might dangerous, but I have dabbled. The ensuing scorn and put-off-ishness is anathema to the reasons I blog, so I’ve toned down a bit; in this arena I can get a bit wild-eyed.

So that leaves philosophy – or what I would prefer to entitle – Applied Philosophical Awareness. How pretentious! But that is the best moniker I can come up with as a secular translation of the Buddhist concept of mindfulness. When I mention Buddhism to others, I can actually see and hear minds close. I think to myself during my writing sessions how to share the wisdom of Buddhist thought, to the small degree I am able, with blogsters and blog readers who reflexively recoil from such blatantly non-Christian ideas.

The beauty that is eastern philosophy, as express in the Buddha’s teachings, is not essentially a religion, as Theists would view religion. The most poignant description of Buddhism I found relates the practical application of “the way” as “a science of mind and a philosophy of ethics.” In this way people who don’t feel comfortable with religiosity, like myself, can approach the Dharma as a vehicle of self-improvement, of an understanding of the human mind, through which all phenomena must be filtered.

To view Buddhism in the Theistic definition of religion is akin to stating “all apples are red.” While most apples certainly fit this description, some very possibilities are neglected. Buddhism can be a religion, to those so inclined, but not necessarily so. The core teachings of mind and suffering are a definition of the human condition, and so it pertains to all, irregardless of belief and culture.

Why I bother to mention this subject at all, stems from my lifelong gut feeling that without individual effort, our civilization will enter a tailspin only to crash and burn. I’ve felt this as a vague notion since childhood, only to reform this hypothesis repeatedly throughout my life. It is this belief that spurs most of my writing; it is the story I’m somehow meant to tell. No matter how free-flowing my writing habits are, most of my prose eventually comes around to the following point: In order to change the world from its disastrous course, one must first change ones self. As Ghandi said: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” If enough of us adhere to this, in ways small and grand, the world will have changed itself.