I haven’t posted anything in a while. I am aware of that, and I’ve really been itching to get to it.

I’ve just been busy.

Life has me pointed in a lot of interesting directions right now. I’m learning a lot of new things, and I’ve gotten busy doing that.

I still screw off quite a bit, don’t get me wrong. Don’t anyone go fretting about that.

I’m still Larry.

I still like to have fun.

I like to go at life full throttle a lot of the time. I charge through the door, get shit done, and go until I’m exhausted.

I also like to give whatever I’m doing my full attention.

Daily meditation helps me with that.

I like to be mentally focused as close to “right here, right now” as I can get, and I try to stay there throughout the day.

That’s where all of the peace is.

I make better decisions from that vantage point. I usually have my best conversations with people right after I’ve meditated.

Sometimes, I like to meditate before I talk to certain people.

I feel like I need to remind myself where that well of peace is before I get into conversations with some folks.

Throughout the day, I do little things that bring me back to being present. Sometimes I just focus on my breath for a bit.

I do that when I’m driving.

Not too much when I’m driving.

I once heard someone say they wanted to die like their uncle did, peacefully in his sleep.

Not like the dozens of screaming, terrified passengers on the bus he was driving.

Anyway.

Sue caught me focusing the other night while I was writing.

I like to write sitting in my office/library. I call it an office/library because there are a lot of books in here. We usually meditate here before we go our separate directions for work every day, so to me, it’s peaceful.

There are candles. Surround-sound speakers. To me, it has a very Zen vibe.

There’s a lot of freaky stuff in here, too.

And knives.

But anyway, the other day I was sitting in my chair writing, and Sue was sitting next to me when she suddenly yelled:

“Larry! You’re not breathing!”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“What?”

She repeated that she had just noticed I wasn’t breathing while I was writing.

I laughed.

“Yes I was. Just very slowly.”

Part of my mind had been aware that I was intentionally taking deep breaths, holding them for a moment, and slowly exhaling.

I told her I do that intentionally. It’s like a small portion of my mind stays aware of my breathing, and it helps keep me very present while I’m writing.

“It helps me focus on what I want to focus on.”

Because I do it so often now, I barely pay attention to it.

When I first started practicing this (remaining engaged with the world while also maintaining some awareness of my breath), it was rather difficult.

The mind doesn’t really split its focus. We can only truly focus on one thing at a time.

“The mind cannot serve two masters.”

I remember walking while trying to focus on my breath and noticing that my gait would change. Apparently, at that point in my development, I could either walk normally or breathe consciously.

Doing both was advanced coursework.

It took practice.

Now, I mostly do it from muscle memory.

Writing also puts me into a flow state.

A flow state is somewhere I like to get to often because there’s a lot of internal peace there.

I know I’m in one when I lose all track of time and don’t want to stop doing whatever it is I’m doing.

Bass fishing does something similar to me.

Sometimes it’s difficult for me to stop fishing once I get into it. Even if the bass aren’t biting, my mind starts negotiating with reality.

“Well, once I change to the next lure…”

“Let me investigate that tree stump over there…”

“That’s probably where they’re all hiding.”

Maybe that isn’t a total flow state.

Maybe that’s just why I’m sometimes late getting back from fishing.

I get stuck.

Writing and other creative things definitely do it for me, though. I might be writing for three hours before I notice everyone else has gone to bed.

I can almost feel the creative part of my brain being stimulated, as if I’m massaging it while I write.

Maybe that’s the dopamine my brain releases when I get into that state.

That’s my brain saying:

“We like this. A lot. Here, have some dopamine.”

Internal drug store.

I don’t just do it for the internal drugs, although they’re nice.

Sometimes I get compliments about my writing and the other things I create.

I’ve had people tell me that something I wrote somehow alleviated a little suffering in their life.

I like helping people.

So when I get feedback like that, I imagine my brain releasing a little more dopamine and saying:

“See? You helped some people and didn’t even know it. Here, have some more dopamine and go write something else.”

Maybe that’s part of why I keep doing it.

There are a lot of things competing for our attention out there. An endless number of things trying to pull us away from right here, right now.

But this is where I actually live.

Right here.

This breath. This conversation. This sentence. This person in front of me. This thing I’m doing.

And when I can give myself completely to whatever is actually happening in front of me, I tend to find that well of peace again.

The well I sometimes meditate before difficult conversations just to remember how to find.

The peace was never in getting everything done.

It was in being completely present for whatever I was doing while I was doing it.

So, anyway.

I haven’t written anything in a while.

I’ve been practicing.