The Art of the Mundane

I've been slowly having one of those profound but obvious epiphanies over the past few days. Nothing new, but still something that seems like it might just be important to live a beautiful life.

But first, a random side note about living a beautiful life. That's something else I realized over the past few weeks. That living a beautiful life shouldn't be easy. Okay, I should probably define a beautiful life. But I don't know what that would be. I could say living a 'good' life, where we define good in the Platonic sense. As in, living life to it's fullest. Yeah, that's a beautiful life. And that doesn't come easy. It seems like that sort of thing should really be 'natural,' that we should automatically come out on top. But if it were so easy, then more people would end up living that sort of life. And if you take a little sneak peak at the world, I think you'll see that very few people are living the life that they really want to live. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration. But I would say that few people are living up to their maximum potential. I mean, you can't even know your maximum potential.

So, yeah, there you have it. Living a masterful, beautiful, good life isn't easy. I would imagine that's half the fun of it, though. If life were so easy to live so well, then where would we find the challenge. Kind of that conundrum of 'If you could only be happy, like dopey happy, all the time, would you want that?' I mean, sure, it sounds great. But being in the sunlight 24/7 sounds good too, until you get sunburn and the cancer.

But back to my original premise. Which I haven't told you about yet. Hehehe. I'm so good at reeling them in the reader, huh? But whatever, here it is -- the big cahoona, the ultimate truth to life, the universe, and G-d:

To master life, you must master the mundane.

Buh buh buuuuuh! Okay, sounds really lame. I know. You don't tend to think of mastery and the mundane in the same sentence. But if my idea sounded completely intuitive, you wouldn't still be reading right now. So let me explain.

Basically all roads [scientific, religious, philosophical, sport, etc.] point to one and only one Rome: the only way to gain mastery at anything is to do it. And then do it again. And then do it about 99,998 more times. Or at least, that's the rule of 10,000 hours to mastery. I think the science is there. I didn't really look it up. But it sounds pretty impressive.

So, if the secret to mastery is doing something 1E5 times, then why don't more people reach some level of mastery? Well, the simple truth that I'm realizing, for me personally, is that I tend to make something much less mundane than it should be. If I want to get better at running, I should probably just hit the roads and get out there and run. I mean, duh, right? Then why haven't I been out there every day for the past two months? Because I'm expecting some sort of special formula? Because I think that running is a special occasion that only works when all the variables are set to 'go'?

If you want to reach the point of running at your best, you have to make it just 'another one of those things.' Like eating. And defecating. And drinking water. And breathing. It shouldn't become more important the better you get at it. It should become less important. It should just fade into the background of your life. Because that's when you know your full mental energy, not just your fancy smancy prefrontal cortex mental energy, is allotted the task. We're all masters of breathing, of eating. Why? Because we don't really think about it. Tiger Woods isn't a master of golf because he worries about it more than the average golfer. He's a master because he thinks about it less. The best runner in the world probably doesn't see running as a big deal. The best writer doesn't see writing as an amazing activity. The better at something you get, the more you realize it isn't magic that makes it all work. It's just something that you're body/mind does. Just do it, for Jehovah's sake!

But let's address that one too [because you know, this post isn't quite long enough yet! Oh, yeah, I have more!]. Recently, while riding a bike, I was advised by someone that the best course of action to learn how to ride a bike is to 'just not think about it.' I don't think that really works. You can't 'just not think' about something that you haven't learned yet. That's like telling a 3 year old child to 'just not think so hard' about reading, because to an adult, reading should just flow naturally. You do have to go through a certain period of thinking intensely about the activity. And chances are that period of time is really going to suck. Or at the least, is really going to challenge you. But then, it'll be just like riding a bike [score!].

Urh, I don't think I have much more to say about that. It really adds up to the small, mundane things you do every day that adds up to amazing lifetime accomplishments. Don't wake up in the morning wondering what the most stunning thing you can do. Wake up and wonder what the most mundane step towards your goal is. And then start taking it.

The rest of this post will just be more asides that this topic makes me think of. It's probably overkill, but I've got the time and the inclination, so here we go.

This topic, the art of the mundane, also makes me think about my vegetarian diet and how so many people keep commenting, "Oh, are you still a vegetarian?" To me, that question is kind of like asking me if I'm still breathing. Why wouldn't I still be a vegetarian? Until someone can show me the statistics that say not eating meat is worse for the environment, harms animals more, and is less healthy, I don't plan on changing my mind on this one. It just seems like such a no-brainer.

But so many people do relapse. Maybe they really do just love meat that much that they can't abstain from eating it. Or maybe the vegetarian diet just hasn't entered the domain of 'the mundane.' When I go about thinking of what to eat, the idea of eating meat doesn't even cross my mind. It's right up there with the option of running headlong into a car on I-95. Why would I do that again? And when you don't have to waste mental energy on making a decision every time [ie, when that activity becomes mundane], then you've really reached the point of a habit. I guess that's the definition of a habit. What do you know, maybe this whole post has been about habits and I didn't even know it. Well, that would make all of this much less interesting. Good thing you had to get this far before I realized that! ;)

And on a even more completely unrelated note, I've become fascinated by setting goals that aren't time based, but physical quantity based. For example, when running, I've found I like running a certain distance / route more than running for a certain amount of time. While reading, I'd rather read a certain number of pages rather than for a certain amount of time. When practicing from my guitar method book, I'd rather do X pages than X minutes. And most noticeably for me, when I meditate, I'd rather meditate for Y breaths rather than Y minutes.

Okay, maybe I'm just playing a game of semantics. But I feel like time is such a subjective thing, it's hard to plan around it. Writing this post felt like it took no time at all. But in reality, it took about 20 to 30 minutes. So, that would probably have scared me. But instead I set a word count goal [500 words... don't worry, we're well over 1000 now!], and here I am, at the end, pleased with the result.

This may just be a fad. Or maybe it's another one of those habits of mine that will enter the lair of mundanity. Who knows?

I hope you've enjoyed this journey into the mind of Dave. Please leave all trash at the door.

Namaste.