It’s All Too Much: EcoTrain QOTW

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Abundance woes

In this week's EcoTrain Question Of The Week @eco-alex asks us "what have you had too much abundance of, and how did you deal with it? What would have been the likely outcome if you had not dealt with it both short and long term?

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Too much is taken and not enough given
— Steve Howe

 
Waste is an un-realised abundance.

That was the wonderful re-frame I took from @eco-alex's QOTW announcement post.

And so I contemplated where I sat with this notion. What came was the word "gratitude".

With that word, I suddenly noticed that the abundance I thought I was chasing was already here, and I was missing it. In those instances, I have been focussed on what I didn't have, instead of looking at what I have plenty of and wondering how I can re-purpose it.

This is not limited to material things, but also thoughts, emotions, ideas, time, and so on and so forth.

Well we do the same things that we always do
Nothing changes, but the channel changes views
Well the trouble with you has been
You can sleep, but you can't dream
— Midnight Oil

 
There is nothing like a change in view to help me realise this kind of thing. I have just returned from a trip to Japan; it's still very much an ultra-modern 1st-World country, but it was different enough for me to recognise that there is so much I have that I didn't realise I did have until I was without it, even if just for a couple of weeks.

And not just that I have stuff, but an abundance of it. Which i take for granted and don't utilise as an invaluable, generative resource.

And of course, having found myself immersed in Zen Buddhist teachings and practices for the last few days, I employed the inquiring state to ask the purpose for such a behaviour. The answer was obvious.

You never stop needing
— Silverchair

 
The craving of desire, that unquenchable fire for more... more... more... the root of suffering, according to the Sakyamuni Buddha.

Overwhelmed by you

There's been a niggling thing that's been irritating me for a couple of months now, in the context of my relationship with my partner. I can only describe it as the perception that my 'love-tank' was empty.

Of course, I now realise that it wasn't really empty, I was just refusing to use what I had. Because I was afraid of emptying it. It only took being separated by thousands of kilometres to realise that. Here I have been, afraid that all was falling apart; feeling that I wasn't enough... there was never a lack... just an abundance that was simply being un-used, discarded, ignored.

And I've been facing this alone
For much too long
— Queen

 

And this goes for lots of other things in my life: money, time, friends, etc.

It's a kind of 'overwhelm' — and maybe that's also a key way of looking at the issue of 'waste' in the material/ecological sense. Nothing in nature is ever wasted, it is simply re-used, re-cycled, re-purposed. But I used to help clients with this really easily: break the problem down into smaller, manageable chunks.

Example: not enough time.

Where is my time?
Time is consumed by my work; working brings money.
Solution: exchange money for time.

 
Ta-da!

Which is of course, precisely what I've been doing for about 18 months (maybe less); buying myself time away in a foreign country. So those extra 4 hours of work per week over a period of time were the way I achieved a family holiday. When I look back at that, it really was not that much extra effort.

Part 2: Next week's real life "tire" challenge

So in the QOTW announcement post a challenge was given to do over the next week:

The challenge is simple, find an old tyre and re-purpose it! You can do anything you like, there is no end to the ideas you can have with tires, whether they are art based, functional, gardening related etc..

 
While this is an awesome idea to help clean up the world of items that pose a big pollution problem, I've decided to tackle this challenge in a slightly different way. After all, "it may involve a bit of treasure hunting and imagination."

One thing about this QOTW was about understanding how to deal with something I am abundant in that I have to this point considered 'waste'.

Given that the next week is going to be very busy with work, I'm applying a creative approach to this challenge...

Something I am abundant in — and certainly will be next week, I'm sure — is...
tire-dness.

You know I can't sleep, I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks, I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got
For a little peace of mind
— The Beatles

 

So I'm wondering if I can up-cycle my abundance of tire.
The purpose of Taoist Alchemy is the act of transmutation: changing one thing to another thing. In Taoist medicine, tiredness (fatigue) is a sign of deficiency of Qì, either from a lack of nutrient, or some kind of stagnation/blockage somewhere in the system.

The challenge I'm setting myself (as well as trying to find an old tyre to re-purpose, as per the QOTW challenge) is to transmute my tiredness, to use it as the source to change something in my diet/lifestyle during the week.

I guess I'll be posting on how this is going over the course of this challenge.

One thing's for certain,
A year like this passes so strangely
Somewhere between sorrow and bliss
— Florence & The Machine

 

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Listen to the soundtrack for this post here

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