Zen and the Art of Solitaire

I read the first 2 chapters in the book The Joy Diet by Martha Beck. Essentially, I couldn't do the first thing on the diet, which is nothing, so I didn't consider moving on before I had mastered the first step. I never thought it would be difficult to just sit down and do nothing, but it is so ingrained in my Protestant-work ethic body to always be doing. So I found a compromise, and it's working well for me.

Solitaire. It's something many people would consider a waste of time, a mindless activity to pass the time. However, I have discovered life lessons in this simple game. First of all, it is statistically impossible to win every game. Although no statistics currently exist for the game, I know from experience that you can play a game without moving a single card. That's just the way the cards are dealt. Sometimes, that's life. We are dealt whatever cards we have in life, and sometimes, we just can't win. The nice thing about life (and solitaire) is that sometimes we do win. Solitaire may be just a game, and it's easy not to take it seriously. Life is not a game but sometimes I think we take it too seriously. Knowing that sometimes we win and sometimes we lose should help us keep things in perspective.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts." -Winston Churchill

Loving Life and the Food Network

I used to think that to live a really full life meant you had to live, well, a full life. Every minute should be doing something, not just anything but something meaningful. Thus hours were guiltily wasted watching TV (except the Food Network-hey, even in the Sims you can gain cooking skills by watching cooking on television) and playing Solitaire. I would ask myself when I was going to write that novel, or do something useful.

I picked up The Joy Diet by Martha Beck the other day. The first step in the joy diet is to do nothing. Since I couldn't very well do nothing, I gave up after the second chapter (truth: why couldn't I do nothing? well, I think I've already explained that). I liked the idea of the book but its practices I wasn't quite ready for yet. I did, however, realize that this may be the only time in my life that I can play Solitaire without interuption and I have come to enjoy it as rather a Zen activity. So I'm halfway there.

My favourite chefs on the Food Network are Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver. Aside from their cute (but vulgar) British accents, one of the reasons why I adore their shows (and dislike so many of the celebrity "chefs") is because they have a lot of passion for their food. They care about quality ingredients and doing things right.

Then, it hit me: loving life is as much about filling every single moment with activity as loving food is about shoving fistfuls of food in your mouth. Loving life is about passion. It's about savouring moments, whether it's solitaire or the next great novel. It may be bitter, it may be sweet, it might leave a nasty aftertaste in our mouth, but if we're going to live it to the fullest then we should make every effort to relish every thing that comes our way. Isn't that what zest for life is all about?

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of."- Benjamin Franklin

"All miseries derive from not being able to sit in a room alone." Pascal