Are we having fun yet?
Dance with the dogs...
(September 22, 2026)(October 13, 2026)
When did living become a problem to be solved? Sometimes we try so hard to get into the
proper mindset; become calmer, more wise, to understand emptiness. We are even trying to overcome attachment, to
meditate correctly, or figure out who we are. Sometimes I get so tangled up in trying to
understand an experience that I forget to actually have it.
Years ago, my first wife had an assignment to do and part of
it was to get ‘10x excited’ as a practice to show enthusiasm and ‘be’
that. She would jump around, yell, throw
her arms in the air, whoop whoop, all that.
But it was strained. She complained
she could not ‘feel’ it, and it was not natural or genuine. She would go and practice in front of the
mirror and then come and show me. To me
she seemed like it was working and she was being pretty over the top with
it. She didn’t think so. It was turning into an analytical discussion about
what excitement looked like and what it really was, not so much the actual practice
and activity of joy. At the time we had
just adopted some puppies that had been abandoned in the neighborhood. We had the mother and three pups. They were only about three or four months old
when we got them and as puppies are they are so excited to have food, get
attention, or completely lose it when we would get home. She tried again and again to achieve a 10x
exited experience, and every time she did the dogs would go wild. They would jump up on her, tumble with each
other, and run around the house like it was a circus, slobber, tongues and
tails, all over the place. She tried and
tried to manufacture that excitedness and there it was right with her all the
time. They would jump and wag tails and bark, always amping up to a genuine 10x
excited existence. I mentioned it to her
almost in passing, she nor I realized it but her best teachers were there at
her feet. Once we both realized the puppies and that
genuine excitement it became naturally contagious and she was able to feed off
them as they were feeding off her. She kind of stopped doing the exercise altogether
and just had fun with the puppies. They
just ‘were’ excited, and the only reason was because they thought she was
too. Because she was. It was a great scene.
This all isn’t about simply finding joy, it’s about what happens
when we turn an experience into evaluation.
Once my wife started to try and evaluate whether she was 10 times as
excited, she was no longer in the experience, instead we were in a conversation
about it. This happens in meditation all
the time. We sit, ‘am I calm yet?’ ‘Is my breathing right?’ all sorts of
questions and commentary and questions.
Instead of meditating we have made it into a kind of test or performance
review. I often have done this and in
remembering the dogs and her, it helps me remember to be present. As we were then, that is why it is such a fond
and vivid memory, I think.
We can cultivate the conditions for joy, calm, compassion
and wisdom. We cannot simply command
them to appear. This is where we can get lost in trying instead of doing (as
Yoda said).
Here, as the whole world goes on, we sometimes stand outside
of it, evaluating it, judging it. Trying
to figure it out without participating in it.
We can miss out on the joy that is already happening around us by trying
too hard to figure out where and when it is.
When all we have to do is put the book down, let go of the analytic tendency
and actually live, or play. Or, dance
with puppies.
Why is it that sometimes we find it difficult to experience the
thing we are trying so hard to create? I
have found myself in these same conditions and remember the puppies, to look
for that enthusiasm without commanding it to occur. Letting myself feel without having to discuss
with myself or analyze if this is a mindful thing to do. I find
myself being very critical of totally natural states like sadness, excitement,
anger. It is good to feel them, to
experience them as they are. The key is
to not only notice it, but to deeply feel them and let go of the analysis
paralysis. I try and catch myself in
this and not write another chapter in ‘the serious person’s manual to existence’
and instead put the book down and allow experience to be what it is without
deciding whether I am experiencing it correctly. Sadness doesn’t have to become joy; Anger
does not have to become calmness. Excitement does not have to reach ten
times. Sometimes we can examine our
emotions, other times we can simply experience them. Both can be right.
It appears all I have to do is remember to put down the book
and dance with the dogs.
