I like to listen to music when I drive alone. Car is like a mobile audio room; I don’t get to listen to music out of 6 speakers in my everyday life otherwise. And when I’m alone, I can crank up my favorites without imposing them on others. Dave and I have very different tastes in music.
But driving requires almost all my mental ability. I didn’t start driving regularly until I was 33. I did go to a driving school when I was 18, spent almost 30 hours and $3000 of my parents’ money and got a license, just like any other Japanese 18-year-olds would. But after that I lived in Tokyo, Europe, and New York City, where the world-class public transportations were available. I didn’t have to drive at all, until I moved to a suburb of Chicago with a baby and another on the way. I didn’t have the warm-up time of driving around by myself and feeling comfortable before the most precious cargo was put in my back seat. Driving started out as somewhat a nerve-wrecking activity, and it still demands a lot from me.
The American urban highway, especially, freaks me out. In Japan and in Germany, each lane has designated speed and everyone follows that rule: no passing from the slower lane, period. Here, the rule seems optional. People pass from every which way and I don’t know how many times I saw cars from both sides passing and simultaneously coming into my lane right in front of me and screamed. I’m not a slow driver, I try to be in the flow with everyone around me, but obviously I’m too slow for those who need to get there a few minutes sooner.
So I’m driving with all my nerves directed to what’s happening on the road, but at the same time I want to listen to my music. This presents a great problem. I am not very good at multitasking. I have no idea how I survived my daughters’ infancy to toddlerhood, when I assume I had to do more than one thing at a time, all the time. When I listen to music, I’d like to listen to music. I am one of those people who like “albums” and listen to the CD from the beginning to the end without skipping a song, because that’s how it’s made and I’d like to enjoy it how it is intended. But when I’m driving and listening, or at least trying to, I end up doing a lot of skipping, backwards.
While I like listening to the whole album as it flows, I do get attached to certain songs. And within those certain songs I get attached to certain words or melody lines. And this is what happens when I’m driving and listening to music at the same time:
“…The streets you’re walking on, a thousand houses long,
Well, that’s where I belong, and you belong with me,
Oh, what good is it to live, with nothing left…” Whoa! That truck was going so fast! I think the driver was texting. …Oh, no, I missed the favorite part. Back back back…
“…that’s where I belong, and you belong with me,
Oh, what good is it to liv…” Should I turn here or at the next intersection? …Oh, I missed it again. Back back back…
“…and you belong with me,
Oh, what good is it to live, with nothing left to give,
Forget, but not forgive, not loving…” What should we do for dinner? Chicken? Fish? Shrimp pasta? …Oh, shoot! I missed it again!
So I go back to the beginning of the song and start all over again. Then I wait and listen to the part I really like, for the sake of listening. Because I am forcing myself to listen, the pleasure of it is gone. I don’t feel the flutter of my heart, that little hick-up that I get when I encounter something that harmonizes with my wavelength. I’m as tense as Miss Daisy at the beginning of the movie. It’s like grasping a singing bowl — the up-side-down bell you strike with a small wooden mallet before prayer or meditation — in my hand, holding it tight, and striking it hard repeatedly, wondering why it doesn’t resonate.
In short, I’m not in the moment but trying desperately to simulate those peak experiences. It’ll never work, but I’m so not in the moment that I don’t even see how comical it is.
This is when I am alone in the car. You can imagine how it is when I have my daughters with me and try to have a meaningful conversation while I drive and my CD plays in the background. Every time I come across a parenting tip that tells me to use the time we spend in the car wisely and have a meaningful conversation with the children, I feel so inadequate as a parent. First of all, I can’t drive and have a meaningful conversation at the same time. It’s just too much for my cognitive capacity. Secondly, I don’t feel I am having a meaningful conversation when I can’t see the other person’s eyes. Then if my favorite part of my favorite song comes up, it’s a lost cause. My mind is all over the place and not focused at all. I get frustrated on so many levels that everything starts to feel wrong.
Then I bought an iPhone. This device is an epitome of multitasking. I don’t ever touch it while driving (I know how deadly it would be if I started doing that), but the fact that it can do so much simultaneously is mind-boggling. You might have seen its recent commercial; you can call someone, call more people and add them in the conversation, check email, search the net, play a game, and whatever more, while you are still on the phone. Do I really need to do these all at once?
I am not good at multitasking, but that doesn’t automatically mean I am good at focusing on one thing; I have a very lively monkey mind. The Internet is an endless trap for it. I would be writing something like this, and when I want to check a definition of a word or find a synonym, I open the net and try to go to a dictionary site I like. But the home page of my browser tells me I got a mail, so I check that first and send out some emails. Then I go back to the home page and see a headline about a huge iceberg breaking off the coast of Antarctica, and I have to click on it and read the article. When that’s done, I see another email in my inbox. Someone commented on my post, so I go to Tomo-ese and comment back. I go back to the home page and find another email, this time from Facebook. So I go to FB, check that particular post and then also what everyone has updated since last time I was there, commenting on some and “liking” others. By the time that’s done, I can’t even remember why I was on the net to begin with. But the worst part is that I know I was supposed to do something other than all the things I just did. Everything was done rather half-assed because of this feeling of “I’ll just finish this quickly and move on to the real thing.” And sometimes the real thing never happens.
Multitasking in this culture seems to be a skill you need to master in order to live an efficient and productive life. It seems to have the allure of desired quality you are supposed to strive for. Yesterday my 10-year-old daughter came to me and said,
“Mom, you know that people always talk about how hard multitasking is? But if you think about it, I’m talking to you right now while breathing, looking at you, thinking what to say, standing, and all that. We do several things at once all the time!” She was triumphant.
“Yes, that’s really true. Now, try only breathing,” I told her.
She looked at me as if I had said something nasty. “I can’t!”
“My point, exactly!”
I know it is a lot harder to do just one thing at a time, but I also know that it is a lot more rewarding if I can do one thing only at a time. When I am having those “wow!” moments — the first time I ever saw the Milky Way, the gentle breeze on my face after a strenuous hike to the top of a mountain, the silence in the meadow, the roar of the crushing waves, the last chord of an emotional symphony — I am not thinking “How do I get back to the parking lot?” or “That burger last night was sub-par.” It’s “wow!” because I am completely immersed in the moment. When my monkey mind starts thinking about something else, it’s gone, the wow slips away. And if the monkey mind is always busy thinking about something, I can’t find the wow in the first place.
Every little thing can be a wow. One spring morning years ago, I was standing on my front porch, soaking up the early ray. I noticed something shimmering in the air. They were long strands of the finest gossamer, each attached on one end to a branch of a serviceberry shrub and the other end flying in the air, upwards. The sun and the breeze had caught them just right at that very moment; otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed them. Wow.
I was lucky that my monkey mind was quiet at that moment. How many wows am I missing, I wonder. How blind and deaf am I to this world, to my life?
Do we feel multitasking is essential because otherwise we can’t get everything done? Could it be that we aren’t supposed to be able to get all that done to begin with? Some of my friends routinely overbook themselves and their children. They seem to multitask so they can free up some time to do more multitasking. “I feel I am missing something,” one of them said to me once, “my schedule is really crazy, I’m doing all these, but I still feel I’m missing things.” I understand the sentiment, especially when it comes to providing ample opportunities and experiences for our children. But, as my daughter realized, we are doing several things at once all the time already. How much more can we possibly do and still experience everything in full strength?
There is also this craving of mine that desperately tries to recreate the wows. The original wow was amazing, so pleasurable, I want to feel that again. There is a false sense of hope in this regard in our lives that are filled with modern technology; we can replay the music on CDs, we can take pictures and videos as things happen, we can watch the same train ride or mountain top on a TV special, and oh yes, we can TiVo that, too. Alas, the reproduction is not the real thing. When the moment is gone, it’s gone. It is possible, however, to get a wow again from the same thing. It’s just a different wow. But as long as I expect the same wow from the same thing, I’m stuck. It’s like striking the singing bowl with my hand around it tightly. And in order to notice I am holding it tightly, I have to quiet down my monkey mind and be in the moment, doing less and doing deeper.
If I loosen my grip, it might resonate. You never know when a wow strikes.
(How should I end this essay? Oh, the laundry is done; I have to fold them. What’s for dinner? Ah, someone texted me. What was the point I was trying to make in this? I got an email. The plants need water. Squirrel!)
Live a life with sparkles, mindfully.
Ah yes, multi-tasking – doing more and getting less out of it.
I think we are all suffering from it at this point. We risk losing the memory of what a WOW moment is – how both grounding and expanding it feels. A WOW moment can really make us feel connected to everything and everyone. and yes, to ourselves.
Noticing our breathing may be an excellent start to recapturing the ability to really EXPERIENCE the days of our lives, rather than just moving through them. Day after day could become experience after experience or WOW after WOW. Thanks again for another thought-provoking Tomo-ese.
Thank you for your comment, Mary!
It’s ironic that those things we invented to “stay connected” actually might be letting us slip into less connected state. I see a mother wearing her Bluetooth at a restaurant, a father constantly checking on his BlackBerry, while kids play on their DS. I see drivers checking their phones and texting; one of them slammed into my car last year. I see them and think to myself, I have to stay connected, otherwise I will miss my life. Then my iPhone dings and I’m a slave to my monkey mind.
But awareness is the first step, isn’t it? In this aspect, that might be the only thing I need — keep being aware.
T
Tomo – doesn’t it seem harder to read a book now? I settle down to read, and before you know it, I get up and do some multi-tasking, back to the book, oops, forgot a deadline, up again…and on and on. That’s why book discussion groups are so use ful – you really have to read that book and finish it by set date. I can’t imagine reading a kindle book, more electronics. Jo-Ann
Thanks for your comment, Jo-Ann!
Books don’t beep, that’s why… Just kidding. I have about half a dozen books I bought and haven’t touched or started and stopped at half way. It’s so bad. Can I please blame books for not engaging me?
I can’t imagine using Kindle, either. I like paper, and I like moving from the left page to the right page (in reverse in Japanese). And now we will add iPad to our list of “helpful” electronics. Gaaaa!
T
Oh Tomo!
I cringe and think of myself as “old school” when I don’t cling to my phone (or simply choose not to answer it) because I do not want to be interrupted (multi-task) while doing something else. I worry that somehow life is moving forward without me. That is, that if I do not keep pace with this electronic life pace, somehow, I will lose ground. But perhaps, it is exactly the ground that I am holding fast to. I enjoyed this post.
Michelle
Yes, you are, and good for you!
I wonder how fast and furious the world would become when our children are grown and on their own…? And if we were lucky and they got our hint, grown to appreciate one moment at a time, then how slow and left behind would they feel?
There is a hope in that there are people out there who, like us, are trying deliberately to be slowpokes. Human experiences aren’t totally lost to electronics, yet!
Thanks for reading and for your comment!
T
I love this post, Tomo, and not solely because it speaks so beatifully to my concept of Availability!
We do lose the wows when the multi-tasking monkey brain takes over, and it is so regrettable. I can empathize with your wish to recapture the wows, and how very elusive this process can be. I wonder whether we’d be better off setting the scene, creating the scenario, at least occasionally, when we can be wowed.
And what better metaphor for it all than music. Great thoughts!
Thank you very much, Dr. Duffy!
(Ha! When was the last time I called you this?)
I think you are talking about meditation? Or occasional vacation? Vacation doesn’t guarantee you wows; if your mind is full of clutter, you won’t find them. So it must be meditation you are talking about.
I find myself resisting every time Dave suggests that I practice meditation. It is the same resistance I have against treadmill and Stairmaster. If you can actually walk or climb the stairs to go some place, why would you want to do that in one place? I’d much rather walk around inside the house, if the weather outside was frightful. Same with meditation; if you can go out into the world and truly become one with everything at any moment, why would you want to go inward? But then again, what do I know about meditation? I haven’t tried enough, haven’t gotten a wow from sitting and being. I hear it’s cool. I guess it’s the precursor to the wow, tilling of the ground.
Your concept of Availability (copyright it already!) is the most important message in life, period. Everyone should buy your book and read it. You are the next Wayne Dyer, man!
Thanks again, John,
T
I know what you mean about the really listening to music thing, Tomo. I am not good at listening to music as background, either. I can’t do anything else if I really want to listen to the music I’m “listening” to. I either stop listening or stop doing the other thing. Consequently, I don’t listen to as much music as I’d like.
But I gotta say, I like my life and the monkey-mind in my head that manages it. I suppose that I’m lucky in that I don’t feel bereft of “wow” moments. I have my share. (Maybe I’m too easy.) And with few exceptions, all the things I do that get in front of “wow” moments, I’m pretty wowed by as well. I reckon I just have a “wowsy” life.
Thanks for reading and for your comment, Ean!
I like that, a wowsy life. That’s really cool. You get wowed because you pour yourself into the moment, every moment. I know I’m a bit judgmental toward my monkeys. I once was a perfectionist. I’m getting better at loving how I am (I didn’t beat myself up for forgetting to bring the singing bowl, for instance!), but there still are some remnants in me. If I can completely accept everything, I would be frustration-free.
I will strive to become an easily wowable person!
Cheers,
T