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[Lifetime]

Last night I went to the Stoneboro Fair. The Grand Kids hit the rides and some of us older folks found some shaded seats and a cold drink. Watching the people at the fair can be eye opening and thought provoking.
 
Well the "CLARKS" were slated to play and we all found seats to the right of the stage as you faced it. It started to get dusk when it started and the hustle of the fair came to a slow walk as the first song was sung. As it got darker I noticed a small girl, maybe 6 or 7 who had on those shoes that light up as you step. She pulled a friend from the bleachers who had Down Syndrome, maybe in late teens, out to the grass, where they danced. As I watched them, they seem caught up in the music and that was all that their world consisted of. They were carefree, with the cares washed away with each note as they swayed and danced. I envied them. I heard the music and the beat of the drums, lead and bass but, stuck in my mind, were the residues, muck and mire of life. They ( the two girls) represented true freedom and innocence, if just for now. Both smiling as they enjoyed the music and the light from the shoes marked time to each song.
 
Sometimes, I think we make life so complicated that it makes no sense. We chase things that mean little, instead of holding onto things that mean a lot and are precious. We have a want for THINGS but no desire to hold onto what makes us, truly, us.
 
By the way...the show was great... even though I was soaked in sweat and beat by the heat.

[lifefeedsonlife]

It's funny - cuz psycholgists (and others) have given a name to what you've described in those girls dancing. They've labelled it mindfulness. Simply the act of directing (or not directing but allowing) one's atention to a thing - whether it be observing, describing, or participating in an activity. Mindfulness is practiced non-judgmentally, ny focusing on one thing at a time in an effective (doing solely just what's needed in that moment) way.

They were mindfully particpating with the music by dancing - and you were mindfully observing (and here describing) what they were doing - and were quite aware of your own thoughts as well.

I think if more people practiced being in a moment - they'd be a lot "healthier" in many ways. (I imagine Gore is nothing but minful hiking down into the Grand Canyon.) I teach it to folks - and try and practice it as best i can. It's funny though - because it doesn't require learning so much as it requires an unlearning of all the lousy habits we've been taught through school and in our consumerist culture.

You really wanna learn some mindfulness? Watch a three-year-old playing with trucks or dolls. (Or pretending to be something.) They're good teachers.

That was cool Lifetime - I like your reflective side!

[Lifetime]

Just a secret between you and I... I have played with Barbie and Ken dolls with my Grand Daughters... usually when the other adults weren't around. Now, promise not to tell anyone else...LOL. I guess at my age I don't really need to make excuses for what I do *S*.
 
 

It's funny - cuz psycholgists (and others) have given a name to what you've described in those girls dancing. They've labelled it mindfulness. Simply the act of directing (or not directing but allowing) one's atention to a thing - whether it be observing, describing, or participating in an activity. Mindfulness is practiced non-judgmentally, ny focusing on one thing at a time in an effective (doing solely just what's needed in that moment) way.

They were mindfully particpating with the music by dancing - and you were mindfully observing (and here describing) what they were doing - and were quite aware of your own thoughts as well.

I think if more people practiced being in a moment - they'd be a lot "healthier" in many ways. (I imagine Gore is nothing but minful hiking down into the Grand Canyon.) I teach it to folks - and try and practice it as best i can. It's funny though - because it doesn't require learning so much as it requires an unlearning of all the lousy habits we've been taught through school and in our consumerist culture.

You really wanna learn some mindfulness? Watch a three-year-old playing with trucks or dolls. (Or pretending to be something.) They're good teachers.

That was cool Lifetime - I like your reflective side!

[lifefeedsonlife]

 

[Zipper]

Last night I went to the Stoneboro Fair. The Grand Kids hit the rides and some of us older folks found some shaded seats and a cold drink. Watching the people at the fair can be eye opening and thought provoking.
 
Well the "CLARKS" were slated to play and we all found seats to the right of the stage as you faced it. It started to get dusk when it started and the hustle of the fair came to a slow walk as the first song was sung. As it got darker I noticed a small girl, maybe 6 or 7 who had on those shoes that light up as you step. She pulled a friend from the bleachers who had Down Syndrome, maybe in late teens, out to the grass, where they danced. As I watched them, they seem caught up in the music and that was all that their world consisted of. They were carefree, with the cares washed away with each note as they swayed and danced. I envied them. I heard the music and the beat of the drums, lead and bass but, stuck in my mind, were the residues, muck and mire of life. They ( the two girls) represented true freedom and innocence, if just for now. Both smiling as they enjoyed the music and the light from the shoes marked time to each song.
 
Sometimes, I think we make life so complicated that it makes no sense. We chase things that mean little, instead of holding onto things that mean a lot and are precious. We have a want for THINGS but no desire to hold onto what makes us, truly, us.
 
By the way...the show was great... even though I was soaked in sweat and beat by the heat.

People ask me why I put forth so much energy and time into bands, and music. You expressed it very nicely here... it the same reason I have for doing what I do. Music brings joy and lasting memories, provokes emotions, touches lives. In our world of "yuck" and "muck", the music can take you forward, or take you backward into time.... and I encourage people to get out and share that experience.

Good post, Lifetime.

[NightmarePatrol]

The simple joys always seem to be the most gratifying, I doubt that will ever change.

[Lifetime]

I hateto say it but it does to a certain extent. It is based on the level with which you have had to live in a dark world and are scarred by the present world and your age. It seems the older you are, there is less room for time to be Carefree. So..if you have that ability... God Bless... those times sometimes gets harder and harder to find in this cesspool we sometimes realize we are in. Our lives reach and try to hold onto that which is good with our hands and yet the "Crap" seems to have hold of many of our ankles and pull the other way. We have to keep an even keel to keep from falling. Youth can be a wasted time if guided wrong. I guess I see the darker side of this, where I live. Sometimes family, music and memories are the only vessels of sanity.
 
 

The simple joys always seem to be the most gratifying, I doubt that will ever change.

[lifefeedsonlife]

Youth can be a wasted time if guided wrong.

I am reading a book entitled "Hold On to Your Kids" which essentially looks at what the authors call 'peer attachment' (or "Socialization" as the purveyors of such ideas like to call it.) It basically lays out the case that youth culture and the 'socialization' in public schools is largely the root of the problem in our society. It is the source of the generation gap, of anomie, of loss of context to something larger.
 
Gotta cross-post in the education thread - as that's where much of this problem arises.

[NightmarePatrol]

The simple joys are still the simple joys regardless if the circumstances of ones existence change. The joys still remain do they not? What simple joys we prefer can change over time but are the new simple joys as gratifying to us as adults as they were when we wre children? For me, perhaps more so.

[lifefeedsonlife]

As long I'm actively practicing gratitude - I'm on fairly solid ground.

[Lifetime]

WHat is joy to a child molester or pornographer? What is joy to a mass killer, what is joy to a wife beater?  Joy is two things... subjective and subjective to age and proclivity. I started out describing the "joy" of a young child and an adolescent with Downs. My joy is watching my Grandkids enjoying....but I don't think it would be a joy if I was 15 and had to watch them. I would want paid LOL.

[NightmarePatrol]

I dunno, I still enjoy a good meal and heading to the bathroom with some reading material. I hope that's not going to change! 

[Lifetime]

Well I guess nothing beats the basics...Eating and Pooping... LOL If either stops, life becomes miserable.
 
 

I dunno, I still enjoy a good meal and heading to the bathroom with some reading material. I hope that's not going to change! 

[CindyLouWho]

Well I guess nothing beats the basics...Eating and Pooping... LOL If either stops, life becomes miserable.
 
 

I dunno, I still enjoy a good meal and heading to the bathroom with some reading material. I hope that's not going to change! 

Now that was funny LT

[Amidala]

"The Library" as we call it...