Tuesday, February 20, 2007

i enjoy sneezing--HomePage



WHAT DOES "I ENJOY SNEEZING" MEAN?

The phrase exists in order to promote mindfulness. I believe that an individual is much better off if he or she is able to appreciate the positive sensations of life that are often overlooked.
A sneeze is often treated as a nuisance, something that interrupts conversation or creates a physical discomfort (i.e. wetness). But there are many positive characteristics of a sneeze: the physical and emotional release, the loss of control, the momentary unexistence of consciousness, etc. And if we are able to tap into those positive sensations, we open up to ourselves an vast world of possible "enjoyable" sensations.

I ENJOY SNEEZING---A CLOSER LOOK
The basic idea is based on the simple concept of appreciation. If you can derive tiny yet significant tidbits of joy from the little things in life, you're in pretty good shape. In Eastern philosophies, I have seen it referred to as "mindfulness"...where Thich Naht Hanh refers to bells as a daily reminder of being mindful, I use sneezing...I think mine is better for several reasons: 1) sneezing is fun. It's like an orgasm for the nose. It's one of very few moments in a day during which you can lose yourself in the moment. A reference: in the movie High Fidelity, John Cusack refers to sex as the only act he partakes in during which everything else in his life fades away. A loss of consciousness, self-awareness, pain. Sneezing can fulfill that. You just have to be able to release enough to feel it. 2) the word sneeze is a really funny word, both written and spoken. In Spanish, the verb is estornudar. Kinda funny, but not as funny as in English. Does that mean that English is a better language? Quite possibly yes. 3) by thinking about sneezing, as an act or a word, you can acheive a small amount of the goal. Does it make you smile to think about sneezing? Can your mind drift pleasantly away from your daily worries about jobs, direction, sex, life? My mind can, if ever so briefly, bask in the pleasantry of what it means "to sneeze". Therefore, the specific idea becomes a perfect representation of the entire philosophy as a whole.
Let's not limit ourselves to sneezing. Once you can appreciate a good sneeze, your world opens up to a massive array of appreciatable entities. Personal favorites include but are not limited to (please excuse the romanticism): sunsets, people not aware of other people watching them (especially little kids and old people---this ties into the whole idea of lack of consciousness=beauty), really soft sheets, bouncy balls, fumbles, cool textures (especially vinyl with ridges), smells (leaves in fall, freshly mowed lawns in summer, snow, wet dog, sauteed garlic, girls/herbal essences(the pink one))....the list goes on and on...i encourage everyone to make a list of their own....if you have any that you believe are worthy of being on my list, please email them to me mintzmichael@hotmail.com ...i'm sure your ideas are at least as good as mine...the fact is, the more we as a microcosm of society can make ourselves and each other aware of these slices of beauty in life, the more we can appreciate them, the more fulfilled we can be.

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ienjoysneezing.com's WORD OF THE DAY:

INESTUOUS
function: adjective
pronunciation: like it's spelled, dumbass! (in-es-chew-us)
etymology: originally derived from the misinterpretation of a Talking Head's song, currently rising in popularity as a result of extreme proselytization by a certain ambitious and obsessive egoist
definition: marked by a continuous, constantly flowing action or feeling, an omnipresence enhanced by a unidirectional motion.
examples of inestuoucity: river, time, energy....any others?

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WITH POSITIVITY, THERE MUST EXIST NEGATIVITY

Allow me to speak, for a moment, to the two-sided nature of this philosophy. As we all know, not everything is life is sneezes and sunsets; similarly, the idea of enjoying sneezing must accept that there is an equal oppositie negative side of everything (and sneezing is not exempt, i.e. inopportune sneezes, sore throat sneezes, overly wet sneezes).
The point that I'm trying to make is that just as there are an infinite amount of slices of life worth appreciating, there are equally infinite (is it possible to be equally infinite) slices of life worth recognizing as bad. While some modern day philosophies that base themselves on success in the work place or how to tell if you've landed the right man may try to drive you away from dwelling in these negativities, I encourage you to bask in them just as you would the positivities. After all, some things in life just suck.
Whether you are appreciating the good or recognizing the bad, it's that mindfulness that counts.

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A QUICK THOUGHT ABOUT BLAME
I often find myself blaming inanimate objects, soap for refusing to rest quietly in the soap-holder-thing as I shower, my CD player for skipping, my sheets for somehow becoming unaligned with my blanket. To me blame is an important concept in that I believe that our society places too much emphasis on it. Most Americans tend to blame even before assessing the damage, and most certainly seek to blame before determining the intentions of others and often without placing any importance whatsoever on others' intentions.
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WHAT DO PEOPLE "ENJOY..."?

*popping the yolk on an over-easy egg, warm sheets like a cocoon on a cold day, diving for a frisbee on grass so green you can smell it, putting your arm out the window of your car during a sunny drive (courtesy of Mr. Jens Erik)
• seeing a single leaf dropping from a tree and knowing that it has never touched the ground, but once it lands, it will never again not be touching the ground
• perforations (courtesy of Ms. Rebecca Bolton)
fresh bread dough between your fingers, waking up early on the weekends and realizing you don't have to be anywhere by anytime, being soaked by wet rain (courtesy of Mr. Correll Barca-Hall, Santa Cruz, CA)
• smells (leaves in fall, freshly mowed lawns in summer, snow, wet dog, sauteed garlic, girls)
• the sound trees make when the wind blows thru them (courtesy of Ms. Bryonie Maros)
popsicles, watching a couple on their first date, taking walks with no destination, looking at my toes, "sunshower, sunshower, i'm 'bout to catch a rainbow" (courtesy of Ms. J. Aguirre)
• taking a really good dump (ah....orifices)
• waking up to the smell of waffles that my mom has made, clean socks, the red behind my eyes when I'm napping in the sun (courtesy of Ms. Rebecca Mintz)
• remembering a specific feeling from a very distant past at random, how somebody´s face can become more beautiful by the day when you get to know them, ´gezelligheid´, a feeling which can only be experienced in holland, adjectives approaching it include cosy and quaint, extreme weather, reading old diaries (courtesy of Ms. Margo Van de Linde)
• seeing a stranger reading a book you read ages ago and had forgotten about but really enjoyed (courtesy of Ms. Jodi Williams (THK/EE))
• elevator awkwardness, eating-the grand finale (eating everything but the cake iceing first...saving the best for last), walking by a telephone pole or a street sign in a very remote area and wondering who put it there, wondering if anyone has ever touched that tree, peeing outdoors (on top of a cliff is by far the best), overhearing people's conversation pieces as you walk by... always seem so inane (courtesy of Mr. David Wilson)

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FLOATING THROUGH HALLWAYS
Life is, for me, mostly experiential. An example: I'm in a museum, not an art museum, but an informational one. Not in the mood to read or learn, I float through the narrow hallways, past the bright exhibits, noticing the odd reflections off of the curved glass casing, overhearing on a television a description of a traditional dance ritual, while a child explains to his father how the glass makes his eyes hurt.....I am not experiencing the museum as it is intended. I am experiencing as I have chosen to experience it. I float, I open my eyes, ears, nose, fingers to the world. Senses. Sensualism.
This is a feeling that I have with frequency, during which I do not feel intelligent, many ideas escape me, my sense of direction is at its worst, I smile and sometimes laugh at simple things, funny words, people whose actions normally would not seem funny. It is in these moments that I feel I exist most purely. I understand my place in the world. I fit everywhere and without doubt I fit cleanly. I flow with the rest of the world. In these moments there is never awkwardness, discomfort. I feel as though I am one with the single energy of the world. And I see myself as that in a great moment of realization. I see the entire world in a flash, and the concept of "myself" makes perfect sense. And every choice I've ever made, every act I've ever decided to carry out, seems to be so clearly not only the right choice or act, but the only one that ever could have been.

The problem with this way of being is that, although it makes you open to the world, to experiences, emotions, it is a form of seperation from them. If, in sadness, you see that you are experiencing that sadness and there is an element of pride in you, or a thought that says something like "sadness is a part of life and as a seeker of LIFE i am happy to be experiencing this sadness", then one must ask oneself, "am I truly experiencing sadness?" Does awareness distance a person from the true emotion?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject.

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OBLIGATION TO DO GOOD
Are we obligated to work towards something, for progress and development, to help others, to contribute positively to society?
I argued that we are not.
Potential is a beautiful thing in that it represents possibility of abilities.
But potential is also dangerous. When one begins to think of potential as something that must be fulfilled, it becomes an EXPECTATION, and therefore a LIMITATION. And when people act not based on what they want to do or be, but instead as an attempt to fulfill an expectation, they are not following their own righteous path. They begin to make decisions not based on themselves, their own goals, their heart, but instead based on other people, who they want to be as it relates to the way other people view them. If we make decisions like this, how will we maintain the energy to do these things as we begin to realize that, aside from small amounts of praise and recognition, nobody will care or, to put it in less negative terms, nobody will be able to provide for us the energy we need.

Different people's minds function in different ways. Some people do not tend to struggle within themselves in the same way that others do. Some people have to endure the same painful steps of an already-endured mental process in order to come to the same relieving conclusion. Some people, on the other hand, can simply say to themselves "I have gone through these thought processes before, I have thought these thoughts and I have realized the 'way out', the route to freedom from the oppressive nature of the painful thought, and rather than go through those thoughts once more, I will simply know that they are there, not experience them, but KNOW them, and move forward."

The thoughts go like this: Should I feel bad for a person who has made the choice NOT to take the steps to improve their quality of life, educational situation, etc.? Isn't it in themselves to find their own sense of self, and if that self happens to be a non-English-speaking fast-food worker in a world that does not treat non-English-speaking fast-food workers well, is it not still his or her choice?
I suppose that it comes down to the question: is "better" actually better, or just an idea of what "better" is? Or is the real "better" just fulfilling the self that has always been and always will be "that self"?

As I consider this person's situation, the choices that he or she is making, I consider also the way that my brother would react. He wouldn't think too much about it, which isn't to say that he wouldn't have a lot to say about it. He could talk intelligently and at length about personal responsibility versus personal freedom, race and culture, our family's view of success, etc., but he would not have to endure the painful thoughts that are related to the situation. He would already KNOW those thoughts and, possibly more importantly, know the relieving conclusion at the end of those thoughts. He would also know that he does not need to experience those thoughts every time he hears about a situation like this. Perhaps that is WISDOM.
I consider a specific friend and how he would react to hearing of this person's plight, how he would most likely go through the thought processes that ran through my head so quickly. Like an accelerated version of the original thought experience, these thoughts followed each other "en seguido", the whole process taking a mere 15-20 seconds, whereas it may have taken me years to conclude this as a philosophical adolescent. But my friend, my existential friend, he would not pass through these stages so swiftly. He would dwell in them, twist his hair and staring forcefully at the ground as he walked through this forest. He would feel what the immigrant feels; or perhaps he would feel what the immigrant doesn't feel, and for that he feels for her, doubly down. Perhaps that is COMPASSION.


i will walk along these hillsides in the summer 'neath the sunshine
i am feathered by the moonlight
fallin' down on me