Doing, learning something new every day..

 

Smiling

"Man, 70 years old and I still learning.." the man said in the supermarket as he held up the pack of biscuits to the electronic price checker. "You know I never see this thing hey all the time.. " 

He laughed as he picked up the items from his basket and fixed the barcode under the scanner. 

The joy in learning something new. 

A long time ago , I thought it would be good to answer a question in the daily journal "What did you do new today/learn today? and thinking mental health wise that I would be putting in things which made me smile like the man in the supermarket.

Control

Covid-19 forced change on us so what we had to do things in new ways. Most of the changes did not bring joy. Other life events force change on us and it is easy to be caught up in the anxiety of resisting change and the new things and not discovering new things. Like blood clots and vaccines and so.

And so I wrote 'nothing really' for most of the days of the last year as  Covid-19 forced changes, as other life changes meanto managing mental and physical health issues and muddling through the day. 

Learning too of more misery in the world though - that people in Guyana are desperate for the gold under bearing fruit trees and that gold also destroyed a  mountain called Mazoa in Guyana.

And so then doing , learning something new every day which could bring a little smile is now intentional.  Some sense of control to resist the loss of control. To find back the joy of experimenting and discovery just for the sake of experimenting and discovery.

Food gives the opportunity - like deciding to cook aloo (potato) with the pumpkin, and grating golden apple with garlic and wiri wiri as a nice kind of fast relish. Some worthwhile life challenges might present nice opportunities.

 Learning something new is easier than doing something new. Learning could be very passive, absorbing things from clicking around nice links of Facebook and so and discovering things which might not be useful today but which might be nice to know at some later time. So clicking on things which you might not click on normally , dipping into zoom talks about subjects of no interest to you.

Mind and body

Doing though requires engaging the mind and body. In working on the steps, removing your mind from the changes you cannot control or the new things you are learning which do not bring smiles.

Engaging the mind to  focus on what you plan to do, go check out youtube videos or whatever you need to figure out. 

Engage the fingers or equivalent to cut, chip, write, mould, mix, draw, click on the computer or phone to check out things. In shifting steps when things might not be going to the plan, and then feeling joy at picking up a new step.

So pick the green golden apple, peel the garlic, take wiri out of freezer. Grate wiri wiri first, then garlic, then the golden apple to wash the wiri wiri and garlic off the grater.. and then washing fingers to get the wiri wiri off before you go touch anything else.

And smiling when you eat it as you think of the destroyed Mazoa Mountain and the people who need the gold now, that the fruits from the trees above the gold.