Fall

Why do we like fall? Why does it bring so much Joy (capital J- see C.S. Lewis' definition below)? Laura and I worked out two possibilities:

1) The association of past falls. When fall comes around the leaves, football, the crisp air- with all of this comes the memories- of elementary school falls when the world was young, of freshman year falls when life was changing. Maybe these memories bring with it a sense of life gone by, of the slipping away of the present.

2) The change of seasons brings with it the idea of upcoming change. While much in our nature inclines us towards constancy and stability, there's also part of us that is excited by change and the possibility of something new. With the physical change of fall, maybe this sense of possibility is aroused.


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“I call it Joy. 'Animal-Land' was not imaginative. But certain other experiences were... The first is itself the memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery. It is difficult or find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's 'enormous bliss' of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to 'enormous') comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse... withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased... In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else... The quality common to the three experiences... is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”
C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

“I was still young and the whole world of beauty was opening before me, my own officious obstructions were often swept aside and, startled into self-forgetfulness, I again tasted Joy. ... One thing, however, I learned, which has since saved me from many popular confusions of mind. I came to know by experience that it is not a disguise of sexual desire. ... I repeatedly followed that path - to the end. And at the end one found pleasure; which immediately resulted in the discovery that pleasure (whether that pleasure or any other) was not what you had been looking for. No moral question was involved; I was at this time as nearly nonmoral on that subject as a human creature can be. The frustration did not consist in finding a "lower" pleasure instead of a "higher." It was the irrelevance of the conclusion that marred it. ... You might as well offer a mutton chop to a man who is dying of thirst as offer sexual pleasure to the desire I am speaking of. ... Joy is not a substitute for sex; sex is very often a substitute for Joy. I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy.” 
― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

Mindfulness Thought of the day

Mindfulness is not relaxation. Mindfulness is active focus. The irony is that only while expending the energy to maintain focus on one thing does relaxation happen. But if I "just relax" while meditating, my brain will do it's thing and start jumping all over the place.

I think being aware of the energy required will help me be prepared for my mindfulness times in the morning. Mindfulness is more like lifting weights than taking a nap.