Meditation is…

When I think of meditation, I think of someone relaxed in ‘criss-cross apple sauce’ pose or ‘butterfly position’. ‘Butterfly position’ is sitting on the ground, legs flat, knees touching the ground, and feet touching each other. An actual figure that comes right to my mind is Buddha. Buddha sat in a meditation pose, with his Buddha belly and bald head. As he meditated under a tree, he came up with his very own religion. One of the major thoughts when I think about meditating is Yoga. I think of the incense the yoga teacher is burning, usually that cheesy yoga class incense that smells like sage, but it’s artificial. My parents both go to Yoga class tri-weekly. And when they aren’t at that Yoga studio; they’re cycling, running, or doing Yoga at home. I myself meditate. I find that if I’m stressed out and I need something, other than a cigarette, to calm my nerves, I go outside and sit in ‘butterfly position’. It is meditating. I don’t go off on a cosmic journey or anything of the sort, but I feel relaxed and calmed. Meditation means to think or contemplate. When I meditate I sit outside an try to relax and think of absolutely nothing. It sounds like a paradox, but thinking of nothing helps you relax.

I felt fully satisfied after meditating. I felt like I got a rush of sleep, like I got the needed sleep that I missed because of working on school work. Power nap is the term that I hear thrown around. I have never ‘meditated’ in a class, so it felt relaxing to have the lights off and to think of NOTHING. I am a disoriented person. I’m clumsy. I’m forgetful. I’m constantly thinking, almost too much. However, when I did the meditation exercise I felt fully energized after. I feel satisfied, feeling amazing after I meditate.

The Things They Carried

So far, Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” is a well written book. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it reads fairly well. O’Brien and his platoon mates trek through Vietnam with random supplies, which they ‘hump’. They ‘hump’ or carry personal belongings. I thought it was cool to hear all of the different supplies, like one man had woman’s hosiery, another had a Bible, and O’Brien carried a picture of a college girl. Hell, I thought it was hilarious to hear that a man had six or seven ounces of ‘dope’ on him. Not only does he have a little bit, he has SIX flippin’ ounces! That’s alotta drugs. I guess that man will be sleeping well.

After reading the review for the book I was expecting O’Brien to be one of those ‘seasoned war veterans’. I imagined a man from Pixar’s ‘Up’. I imagined a bitter old man that yells at the top of his lungs “YOU HOOLAGANS GET OFF MY LAWN!” or something like that. Instead, he’s a 24 year old man. That surprised me that he’s that young and a romantic. Not only is he not a surly middle aged man, he’s a romantic young man. He talks about his college girl that he wishes to have sex with and it seems all he can think about is if she’s a virgin or not. That seems to be the biggest reoccurring theme in this book, whether O’Brien’s protagonist’s girlfriend is a virgin or not. She’s in college, a Junior in college, so I doubt she is…

O’Brien’s comrades are something. They’re all pretty much bat-shit crazy. I say that only because all of them are rolling on some sort of drug or doing a shenanigan that sounds unmoral. The men shot dogs, killed innocent people, and at one point one of his comrades killed a sixteen year old boy, kicked his body to death, and chopped off his thumb. They kept the thumb as a good luck charm. That’s a tad messed up in my opinion, but then again the Vietnamese were pretty messed up too. Ted Lavender was pissing and he got sniped. He got ‘zapped while zipping’. Once his comrades found him they hardly said any condolences. They joked. They made jokes, like “mind blowing”. It’s punny! The rest after Lavender’s death was saddening.

Anyways, this book is fairly good so for. It’s a roller coaster of saddening thoughts and hilarity. This is one of the better books I’ve had to read for a English class.

Today’s date

Today’s date is September the 13th