I spoke with Bahiyyih and the gang again this morning (which was their evening), and her instructions were that I was to bring back "adventures". I have to admit to being a little bit intimidated with such an assignment when I only have a single free day to fit it in. So I'll have to settle for little adventures for the moment. Suffice to say, choosing food based solely on a small photograph on a menu is a good recipe for small adventures, as I learned today at lunch. Fermented soybeans. 'Nuf linked. At least it was only my appetizer.
Tune in next time when I choose a Bullet Train ticket based solely on photos of the destination.
P.S. You can try this at home.
So I'm in Tokyo for a conference for work. I had no
Internet connection for over a day while I travelled; in fact I don't
have one right now, as I type this -- I plan to post it later, once I
get to the conference center, where there's a wireless connection.
[update: I posted it]
I'm sure that many people have written about this before. Having no Internet connection made me feel like a lost cyborg, I have to admit—I'm so used to looking things up, surfing when I get bored, catching my daily news and comics—It was like the rushing and murmur of humanity that surrounds me had gone silent, and my eyes and ears had been cut off from the larger world. My horizon shrank down to what I could physically see and hear, which for most of that time was either an airport terminal or a small section of an airplane cabin that faded out beyond the British engineer on my left and the sleeping Japanese guy on my right. Plus in-flight entertainment.
It was meditative.
I was forced to deal with the noise and chaos in my mind myself, rather than being able to look outward for stimulation and a sense of order. At the time, it was unpleasant. Claustrophobic, itchy, boring. When a clamor arose inside me, instead of turning to a louder clamor from outside to drown it out, I had to listen. Now I'm glad that I did it. I didn't take a book, I didn't read the in-flight magazine. I did watch a movie, The New World, an intense, scenic piece about Jamestown and Capt. Smith and the Indian Princess whose name I can't remember, because I don't have the Internet as I write this. It was actually contemplative as well. And I peeked at the cartoons (The Family Guy, for example) silently playing on DVD on the British Engineer's laptop to my left. I was grateful to not hear the soundtrack—he had on headphones—it looked even noisier than I was interested in hearing.
And I had a Japanese phrase book. While useful and interesting, it didn't hold my attention (sleepy and jet laggy) for more than a few minutes at a time.
So I got to really think. It was good. We're supposed to meditate, after all. Regularly. Which I suppose means more than once every few months, in an ideal world.
Bring thyself to account each day, ere thou art summoned to a reckoning. For death, unheralded, shall come upon thee, and thou shalt be called to give account for thy deeds.—Bahá'u'lláh
Memorization: for when you don't have the Internet.
I thought about my family, my children, my relationship with Bahiyyih, my service to the Bahá'í community and to humanity (or the lack of it), my daily habits and patterns. Basic stuff.
I'll have to remember to do it again.
