Mindful Commute — March 2, 2023

John Agliata

9 months ago

🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Mindfulness 🧘
Mullet Prez 👩‍🦳
Murder Family 🔪

Our brains are amazing things. So adept are they at routines that they can essentially run on autopilot and let you do the everyday stuff like operating a multi-ton object advancing at 70+ mph among lots of other multi-top objects advancing at 70+ mph without even really being aware of it.

There’s a whole industry centered around turning that autopilot off. It’s called “mindfulness,” and it’s all about the lost art of being present. As in, Here. Right now. In the moment. So important is that lost art that people pay thousands of dollars to go to really pretty places away from their daily lives just to try to rediscover it. Of course, it’s far better to save the money and do it, say, when you’re driving to work.

I drive the same 35 miles to and from work every day. I’ve taken a version of that same route now since 2017. It has become a routine that allows it to fade into the background so I can think big thoughts like what I should have said in response to that diss 25 years ago. So routine is that drive and so lost in my thoughts am I that it wasn’t until about a month ago that Wifey Poo pointed out the huge freaking largely abandoned mall that was on my right on the drive to work and the left on the drive home every single goddamn day.

Oops.

Today, I was much more mindful. Mindfulness is good. But it also has its drawbacks. It makes you very much aware of how horrible the human condition is. For example, a huge percentage of humans think non-tinted glass in cars is somehow a solid barrier between them and you seeing them two knuckles deep up their nostrils rooting around for God-knows-what. I saw three nose-pickers on my drive to work today alone. That’s a disturbing large percentage of picker-carrying vehicles I passed or that passed me, especially when you think about how many hands you shake in your life.

Then there are billboards. One for the National Guard has a picture of a soldier with her family. The soldier is circled and says, “Lives 5 miles from here.” I get the point: The National Guard are your friends and neighbors. Wonderful.

But from a military tactics standpoint, that billboard seems to be a strategic error. Enemies are all around us. At least, that’s what the voices in my head say. So why are we telling them where our soldiers live? Now they can go door-to-door in search of this one soldier in a 5-mile radius and take out not only her but her entire family. A better billboard would be to show a whole bunch of soldiers and some tanks and say “All this crap? It’s within 5 miles of here.” You’d probably be able to lower your police budget, too.

Another thing I saw was a trailer — ya know … the kind that hauls tools and stuff, typically for landscapers — parked outside a dentist office with a wrap-around advertisement for the dentist. The last thing I want my dentist doing is having a trailer. “Hey Jenny. We need another dose of Novocaine. Run out to the trailer and get me one. It’s right under the weedwhacker.”

So as you can see, mindfulness can be highly overrated.

mindfulness

The Internet had so much potential when it first became a popular thing. We giddily watched dancing hamsters and flying toasters and waited 20 minutes for a totally-not-porn photo to load.

Now, it’s a cesspool that makes sewer systems seem like exclusive beach resorts.

But every once in a while, it delivers something absolutely amazing. Here’s what every U.S. president would have looked like with a mullet.

You’re welcome.

mullet

Mrs. Tulin, The Reason I Write

(Editor’s note: Welcome to Living Eulogies. All recollections are accurate in the author’s mind only. Apologies in advance to everyone who has different recollection of the same events. Send all complaints to 1980s Kansas City Royals shortstop U.L. Washington. The choice of a lawyer is an important one and should not be made based on…

Today’s Reasons to Keep Living

More From ‘A Puzzle Known As Life’

Share this: