The Philosophy of the Lawnmower
Mowed the lawn while listening to:
Soundgarden - Greatest Hits 95/100
Static X - Start A War - 90/100
Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs - 97/100
This is not a ripoff of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
This is the direct result of a menial lawn task and some time. I have learned over the years that while I hate doing chores rather than ignore them, as I did when I was 10 (Ok, 21), I try very hard to be a mature adult and get these unpleasant tasks completed. One of my jobs in the house I share with the beautiful owner of the Donut Shoppe, is the lawn.
Yay!
I am not a golf guy. Golf guys love cutting their lawn and pretending it is Saw Grass or Pebble Beach. I would rather live on a pebble beach. I would not have to mow. But since I have to mow the lawn, I listen to some music and rock out while I push the Family Truckster around the yard.
Mark Twain, I believe, once said that golf is a good walk spoiled.
I say, mowing the lawn is a freaking (uh-huh, yeah, FREAKING) waste of my life. Yet, I have made it entertaining. But I have a mind that wanders and when I am completing boring tasks, if my mind gets stuck on my task, I get the urge to scream. Not attractive in a 3 year old and I believe it is grounds for divorce when you are nearing 30.
So I need more than a song to keep me going.
That is right folks! There is a point to this rambling. There is are two reasons the world famous "a blog. no plan. utter chaos." blog has died.
Are you ready?
On the edge of your seat?
Hating me right about now?
C'mon, just a litte?
OK. Good.
Reason #1.
While I hate mowing the lawn, I get a bizarre, OCD-esque (that is obsessive-compulsive disorder for those of you whose are not married to a hospital worker and have most of your relatives and friends working in a hospital) pleasure out of the clean, ordered look of cut grass. While few people would accuse my Forgetful Jones-self of having anything close to OCD, when so many members of your family have it, some of it was bound to rub off, I suppose. Since many (or none) of you may recall from your high school chemistry class, that entropy (chaos) does not require energy, while order requires great amounts of energy. This is the idea. I needed a way to better regiment my posting so someone may actually find my blog worth reading. Hence, I linked it to my most regimented activity. So from the chaos of a blog with no plan, comes The Philosophy of the Lawnmower. Order.
Reason #2.
To go along with my music, I spend most of my mowing time thinking. Rivetting, I know, but I find that during these times that no one wants to interrupt me, unlike at work, I can really think about things with a little more attention than I can while, say driving.
Who cares, you ask?
You should. Not because I spend my Wednesday or Friday afternoons contemplating black holes, or the existence of higher beings, or why, if there are higher beings, George Bush and his boys do not get sent directly to the 666th layer of Hell. But because you should spend time thinking too. Take some brain cells away from your toilet scrubbing and engine block rebuilding and think about a big issue. Any big issue.
Think about why you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice.
What was existence like before the Big Bang?
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
The answer to the last one is three, so stop wasting your time on that one.
But you must think hard and you must think clearly. If your reasoning ends with "just because," or "because I am a Republican," or "the Bible says so," or "because I want to be a pirate," then you are not trying hard enough. Take some time to better understand why you think the way you do.
If you are so inclined, post your thoughts as comments and share your insight.
Expose your reasoning to the ideas of others.
Only then can you become one with the lawnmower.
Only then can you realize, that it is not the lawn that gets cut, but yourself.
Only then can you realize the truth.
There is no lawnmower.
OK. That sounded so much better in the Matrix.
The lawnmower is running. There is grass to be cut. I named my lawnmower Occam.
Soundgarden - Greatest Hits 95/100
Static X - Start A War - 90/100
Ben Folds - Rockin' the Suburbs - 97/100
This is not a ripoff of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."
This is the direct result of a menial lawn task and some time. I have learned over the years that while I hate doing chores rather than ignore them, as I did when I was 10 (Ok, 21), I try very hard to be a mature adult and get these unpleasant tasks completed. One of my jobs in the house I share with the beautiful owner of the Donut Shoppe, is the lawn.
Yay!
I am not a golf guy. Golf guys love cutting their lawn and pretending it is Saw Grass or Pebble Beach. I would rather live on a pebble beach. I would not have to mow. But since I have to mow the lawn, I listen to some music and rock out while I push the Family Truckster around the yard.
Mark Twain, I believe, once said that golf is a good walk spoiled.
I say, mowing the lawn is a freaking (uh-huh, yeah, FREAKING) waste of my life. Yet, I have made it entertaining. But I have a mind that wanders and when I am completing boring tasks, if my mind gets stuck on my task, I get the urge to scream. Not attractive in a 3 year old and I believe it is grounds for divorce when you are nearing 30.
So I need more than a song to keep me going.
That is right folks! There is a point to this rambling. There is are two reasons the world famous "a blog. no plan. utter chaos." blog has died.
Are you ready?
On the edge of your seat?
Hating me right about now?
C'mon, just a litte?
OK. Good.
Reason #1.
While I hate mowing the lawn, I get a bizarre, OCD-esque (that is obsessive-compulsive disorder for those of you whose are not married to a hospital worker and have most of your relatives and friends working in a hospital) pleasure out of the clean, ordered look of cut grass. While few people would accuse my Forgetful Jones-self of having anything close to OCD, when so many members of your family have it, some of it was bound to rub off, I suppose. Since many (or none) of you may recall from your high school chemistry class, that entropy (chaos) does not require energy, while order requires great amounts of energy. This is the idea. I needed a way to better regiment my posting so someone may actually find my blog worth reading. Hence, I linked it to my most regimented activity. So from the chaos of a blog with no plan, comes The Philosophy of the Lawnmower. Order.
Reason #2.
To go along with my music, I spend most of my mowing time thinking. Rivetting, I know, but I find that during these times that no one wants to interrupt me, unlike at work, I can really think about things with a little more attention than I can while, say driving.
Who cares, you ask?
You should. Not because I spend my Wednesday or Friday afternoons contemplating black holes, or the existence of higher beings, or why, if there are higher beings, George Bush and his boys do not get sent directly to the 666th layer of Hell. But because you should spend time thinking too. Take some brain cells away from your toilet scrubbing and engine block rebuilding and think about a big issue. Any big issue.
Think about why you are Pro-Life or Pro-Choice.
What was existence like before the Big Bang?
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?
The answer to the last one is three, so stop wasting your time on that one.
But you must think hard and you must think clearly. If your reasoning ends with "just because," or "because I am a Republican," or "the Bible says so," or "because I want to be a pirate," then you are not trying hard enough. Take some time to better understand why you think the way you do.
If you are so inclined, post your thoughts as comments and share your insight.
Expose your reasoning to the ideas of others.
Only then can you become one with the lawnmower.
Only then can you realize, that it is not the lawn that gets cut, but yourself.
Only then can you realize the truth.
There is no lawnmower.
OK. That sounded so much better in the Matrix.
The lawnmower is running. There is grass to be cut. I named my lawnmower Occam.
posted by Blogger User at 6:41 PM
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