Late lunch break thoughts

   Original version of this photo from Pixabay

Opening sentence

Something of a late lunch break at work. Writing of any kind can help focus the mind so that gives me a chance to share something here with you as I work on an apple and a banana.

While philosophical, shared interpersonal experiences, and artistic themes are common for questions of meaning and existence, especially in any kind of religious or spiritual or closely related context, the baseline of physical, psychological, and social well-being shouldn't be overlooked. Our perceptions, thoughts, creativity, and so on vary in quality and intensity based on our health.

In addition to blogging I also keep a private journal that helps keep me honest. 

To distill some of that honesty while digesting another bite of fruit, my sublimation of and inattention to dissatisfaction with my job, financial stagnation, the state of the society I live in, and so on has helped bankroll bad fitness habits and drain the reserves of willpower needed to stay healthy physically, psychologically, and socially. 

On the surface level, my personal circumstances by broad socioeconomic metrics of human wellness on a worldwide scale is fairly high, which then compels me to an almost forced pseudo-gratitude and bypasses any helpful introspection. That simple leaves the vagaries of the day to test my ingrained inner structures of patience, releasing temporary agitation, and so on. Bobbing up and down on the daily currents of my external surroundings.

Fortunately my practiced temperance and ability to reframe many things in a way that lets me handle them better works well, but that only helps me stay afloat, not to get back to a healthier and more worthwhile state of existence.

 I mean, my job of the last several years could be the basis of a television show with no embellishment. Honestly, no one would believe me if I told them the unpolished and unexaggerated truth of it. It pays kind of OK, not great, for the workload and responsibility but has no benefits other than PTO. I do a wide variety of things I have no background for most of it other than general intelligence and strong reading and writing skills. It's very chaotic and often unreasonable or just bizarre but it looks at a glance like a normal office. It has its rewarding moments and also cascades of sudden deadlines and stress.

That is mixed with other issues outside of work, including my own variety of inner struggles. And hat would be fine if  I had extra motivational energy (and time, and other resources) to improve my health. 

So rather than just journaling where only my eyes can see, I am putting this up as an example of where the "theory" and speculation covered in places like this blog actually hits the road. Not in self-pitying fashion but to acknowledge that this, too -- no, especially this kind of thing, must be part of the talk and practice of spirituality or whatever term people are comfortable with.

This particular type of existential suffering or dissatisfaction is a (primarily, as far as we know?) human condition, formed by our individual and collective imaginations and the pocket realities we create in our philosopher's caves. If spirituality cannot aid us to a better place and state of being here and now, it must inevitably devolve into facile habit propelled by a mindless dogma.

Perhaps such an attempt at honest introspection will aid me in my own path. Or mayhap it will spark something for you, reader.

May your day be well, and your burdens no more than you can manage.