Journal -Take A Break, Really

I’ve made a pact with myself – One day a week, on Sundays, I will completely shut down my computer, my TV, my cell phone and blackberry, fully disconnected for 24 hours. I’ve decided that living a good life requires a kind of balance, a bit of quiet. I need time to think, to reflect, to find the real me (not the virtual me.)

Unfortunately, turning off the screen did not turn off my brain. I managed to walk, nap, and read the whole New York Times, without hyperlinks. Skimming through the Sunday Times, full of thought-provoking articles, I experimented with discovering my humanity, if I still have any left. I stopped to take notes of where I wanted to revisit, stories that touched me, things that interested me:

Real Estate section - Michael Heller Chu, a flamenco guitarist, and a UN humanitarian relief worker: A peripatetic musician finds a place of his own, a one-room coop on the Lower East Side, for $500,000

My Thought: Musicians are a special breed (writing good music is extremely hard); international relief work is hard work, if not hardest of all careers; super-expensive Manhattan still has a little room left for a rambling musician (His house-hunting story reads like a romantic dating story. “This is how you find good places - by chance, by random conversations,” he said. “We met in an elevator; I told her I was apartment hunting; she told me that she had one for sale. I walked into her place, and it was just what I was looking for.”)

Political Opinion section – by Frank Rich: McCain channels his inner Hillary (trumping fear of terrorism and the prospect of perpetual war)

My Thought: Obama, on the contrary, is not naive. His upbeat campaign tone speaks to American pride and idealism. His prescient anti-Iraq war judgment is not something “experience” can buy, and the organization of his campaign superior. He is smart about talking hope and change, because he may not want to be held hostage to the policy promises he made during the campaign.

Obituaries section - John Lewis, son of a Wall Street titan who became a lawyer to fight for the rights of the poor and powerless, and in December persuaded gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York to pardon a paroled convict, died at 64 of lung cancer. He deserted his upper-class way of life, giving away his generous inheritance to the down-and-out and to causes like Indian welfare, and never stopped.

My Thought: How many heiresses have the heart and brain to do the right thing?

Ideas and Trends section - Religion is less a birthright than a good fit (author Dana Jennings eloquently wrote about his conversion from Rockweiler-like Protestant Christianity to soul-searching Judaism.) More than 1/4 of Americans left the faith of their childhood, either choosing a new one (from mega-church to Buddhist monastery, or from mosque to the Cross) or easing into a life of no faith. This isn't all bad: this cross-pollination breeds tolerance and understanding, and carries with it an unexpected energy and spiritual melting pot to all traditions.

My Thought: We seem to go through the same path. Before 40, we are indifferent, agnostic, and too busy with one thing or another. What happens after 40s, we became hungry for wisdom, meaning, and purposes, even though we are adrift in relentless shallow information. Our lives begin in mystery and end in mystery. In between, we try to explain ourselves to ourselves. We became seekers. I became a Buddhist, because I believe in the metaphors given to me from the Buddhist philosophy. And Buddhist metaphor is how I choose to lead my life - it is no better than your metaphor, and vice versa - just something deep (and beyond words) that moves my soul.

Sunday Style section - Eye of the Artist. How to work a creative mind. Mr. Gondry, the French-born film director who made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, talked about how our brains and eyes have a way of modifying reality to fit our preconceptions of it. “Your brain is very creative,” he said. “It makes up all sorts of meanings and shapes. We build up our reality from very little information.” For example, he saw an end piece of a baquette on a Air France flight, he could see only one thing: the breast of his former girlfriend (There's some sadness in it. It was a breakup that was never explained.)

My Thought: Everything has the possibility to have a different reality. If you are a creative person, or if you are forced to make things up, just use your eyes. Be assured that you will see what you want to see. With enough practice, you can harness that creative energy too.

Finally: I picked up a few new words: peripededic, pique, prescient

My Thought: English is such a rich language that never ceased to fascinate me - Reading it has the same effect on me as writing it, or speaking it out in the Toastmaster club.

I dearly love the NYT. With all its reporting on the arts and sciences, commerce and humanities, politics and religion, I don’t have time (or the need) to keep up with my virtual friends.

Susie Li