'The dream-drift'
Via the Morning News feed, we get an essay, "The Metaphysics of Cutting Grass," well worth a relax-and-read if you've ever mowed:
But I find there's another, less volitional mental activity that occurs while cutting grass, one that seemingly lowers a hook to snag things lurking beneath the surface of consciousness. Experts would call it "the incubation effect." Most would call it "zoning out." I call it "the dream-drift." The mind wanders. Stray images and unkempt thoughts slipstream in from some far away cognitive Pacific. It's strange, uncanny, pleasant, and just a bit unnerving, a kind of letting go which, for me, takes the form of a surrender to a mental whateverism, a kind of watching, one step removed, the products of unwilled mental activity, products broken free of any establishing context. It's a being willing, not a willing — a willingness to be open, not a willed effort to establish a goal against which to measure myself.
August 13th, 2010 at 5:22 PM
[...] thoughts slipstream in August 13, 2010 at 3:22 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment Patrick just posted this, and I must re-post. I exist in this state quite often (sometimes, depending on [...]