You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled.

Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful?

You may well be right, Lloyd Alexander.

Kaffe Fassett

I spend a lot of time, really, what with yoga and meditation and the like, emptying my mind.

That's all well and good. Sometimes, I'm a bit too successful and then I'm left with...an empty mind.

You'd think I'd be congratulating myself and adopting Zen-like poses...

Stephanie Estrin

 Trouble is...when my mind's empty, I simply don't know what to do. That's okay for a while, but life must go on and, seriously, I cannot think of a single one of the thousand and seven tasks which really need to be completed...

You know To Do Lists? Well, they're usually for when you have so much to do you don't even know where to start, aren't they?

I'm thinking that when my mind's NOT empty, I'll have to write a To Do List of things I could be getting on with when my mind IS empty.

Nothing, of course, that involves any thought...

“My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.”

Was this from a self-development seminar? A transformational workshop? A psychotherapy session?

Nope. Samuel Johnson said it sometime between 1709 and 1784. (I'm not sure of the exact date.) Enlightened chap.

BEFORE

When I went on holiday, this is roughly what my mind looked like inside...

...only messier. And I didn't have a bolt through my neck.

Here was me working at the computer:

 In fact, I don't really know how I functioned at all. I DID function though because I finished all my projects to deadline and got no complaints. (That's my understated British way of saying I got lots of thanks and compliments)

In the 'doing stuff for work' compartment - firing on all cylinders really. As for the rest - well, there wasn't a rest. I could hardly remember what day it was let alone entertain any thoughts of dealing with Important Matters like my life and well-being.

AFTER

Having a clear mind, by the way, is different from having an EMPTY one. I quite often get those. It isn't really empty, though, it's just so jammed full of can'ts that no rational thought can be squeezed out so it SEEMS empty. Not empty but stuck.

So here's me with a beautiful clear mind and I can see what's important and where to go from here in a calm and not at all driven way and I'm inspired by Eric Butterworth's thoughts - "More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that are cluttering the mind."


The BIG question is: How long will it last?