{"id":2495,"date":"2014-12-14T23:07:06","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T04:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=2495"},"modified":"2014-12-14T23:39:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-15T04:39:20","slug":"donut-stackers-and-mit-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/?p=2495","title":{"rendered":"Donut Stackers and MIT Scientists."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"metrucker\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This evening, I went to the grocery store.\u00a0\u00a0 As I walked in the door, I saw a woman with a tall metal cart.\u00a0 It was stacked high with white cardboard boxes.\u00a0 Inside of those boxes were dozens and dozens of donuts.\u00a0 Glazed ones, pink-iced ones, sprinkled, chocolate, caramel nutty, and so much more.<\/p>\n

She was as cute as could be, with her plumpness in stature,\u00a0 her rosy cheeks, and her joyous disposition as she worked away.\u00a0 She had come from the bakery… or at least I was assuming so.\u00a0 Judging from her cart, her hair net, and her apron with smudges of icing across the front.\u00a0 Anyway, she stacked the boxes of donuts on a wire shelf near the front of the store.\u00a0 It will be the first thing most people will see tomorrow morning as the enter the grocery.\u00a0 Day old donuts.\u00a0 Cheap.\u00a0 Stacked by Darla.\u00a0 At least that is what I was calling her in my head.\u00a0 Darla the Donut Stacker.<\/p>\n

It made me smile.<\/p>\n

Fifteen minutes later, I was back at home.\u00a0 On the TV screen in front of me, were images…. horrible images from war-torn Syria.\u00a0 Small children pointing out snipers in crumbled buildings, and rebels dragging dead bodies through the street.\u00a0 Gunfire, and injury, and destruction.\u00a0 Chaos.<\/p>\n

It made me cry.<\/p>\n

And that is the thing.\u00a0 On any given day…. we will see thousands of images, and hear just as many sounds.\u00a0 We are in a constant swirl of sensory stimulus.\u00a0 In this diverse world of ours…. those images are far and wide.\u00a0\u00a0 They could be happy, sad, scary, or fun.\u00a0 And we are affected as such, if we are aware.<\/p>\n

But the truth of it is…. my mind wanders like I am on the open road.\u00a0 I think it almost has to.<\/p>\n

So.\u00a0 A little later….. I\u00a0 watched a report on being mindful in life.\u00a0 Being in the moment, where ever that moment may be.\u00a0 The featured individual was Jon Kabat-Zinn.\u00a0 He is an MIT-trained scientist who’s been practicing mindfulness for 47 years.\u00a0 But if we take this literally, like he suggests….\u00a0 for instance….. only thinking about eating while you eat, only thinking about walking while you walk, and on.\u00a0\u00a0 Well… how do you ever get anything done?<\/p>\n

I don’t think it can truly be down to the extreme that he suggests.\u00a0 It leaves no room for imagination, abstract thought, and the subsequent actualization of those thoughts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At least… I don’t understand how.<\/p>\n

I can be present in some things though.\u00a0 Like taking notice of Darla the Donut Stacker…. and finding the presence of joy in that that moment.<\/p>\n

But once again… this is yet another example of me having more questions about life than I have answers.\u00a0 Sometimes….\u00a0 I wish I could understand it all.\u00a0 And in the next breath….. I am thankful that I don’t.<\/p>\n

\n
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.\u00a0 —\u00a0 <\/span>Galileo Galilei<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This evening, I went to the grocery store.\u00a0\u00a0 As I walked in the door, I saw a woman with a tall metal cart.\u00a0 It was stacked high with white cardboard boxes.\u00a0 Inside of those boxes were dozens and dozens of donuts.\u00a0 Glazed ones, pink-iced ones, sprinkled, chocolate, caramel nutty, and so much more. She was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nowyouseeit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2495"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2502,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2495\/revisions\/2502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gollypolly.com\/30473\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}