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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| Contrary to popular belief, it is not true that I do nothing. The truth is, I do nothing useful. Here's a Guardian article on how to do nothing: The perfect way to do nothing: how to embrace the art of idling  We are often so busy and yet when the opportunity arises to do nothing, we can find it uncomfortable. Hereās how to lean into boredom ā and unlock the imagination You would think that, of all the things we do, you wouldn't need a how-to guide for doing nothing. It'd be like if Lifehacker put out a "You're drinking water wrong" article. Please, please don't tell me they already have. There are limits to my curiosity, and one of those limits is not wanting to know just where the bottom of the barrel is. On a rainy afternoon last weekend, plans got cancelled and I found myself at a loose end. Given that Iām someone who likes to have backup plans for my backup plans, my initial response was panic. Now what? I wandered aimlessly from room to room, grumpily tidying away random items. In fairness, cleaning is the thing I do when I've absolutely, completely, and totally run out of anything else to do. For good measure, I organised a triage box containing plant food, a mister and a watering can. Why are we still calling them "misters"? That's sexist as hell. Despite the palpable benefits, my initial reluctance to slow down is not unusual. Research has shown that people often underestimate the extent to which they will enjoy inactivity. Thereās a tendency for human beings to prefer to do something, even something unpleasant, than the alternative. It is true that I do not enjoy inactivity. What I enjoy is doing things that benefit no one at all, such as playing video games. Well, I suppose if I pay for the video games, I'm benefiting someone. I'll have to try harder to benefit no one. This was proved to an extraordinary degree by Harvard University psychologists whose study revealed that given the choice between sitting alone with their thoughts for as little as six to 15 minutes or giving themselves an electric shock, participants preferred to be zapped. In fairness, lots of people enjoy being zapped. In skepticism, if you know that there will be no lasting negative (pun intended) effects from getting shocked, why not choose that over doing nothing? At least you're learning what it feels like to be shocked. A true study would determine if people would rather sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes, or have a finger cut off without anesthesia. But I suspect that would violate some pesky ethics rule. Thereās another factor: guilt ā particularly about appearing to be lazy. Increasingly, being busy carries a sense of status and moral superiority. āMany of us grew up with the phrase āthe devil will find work for idle handsā,ā says Treanor. Aw, man, I thought that was an American Puritan thing. You know, the group England kicked out. Many of us simply fear boredom. Sandi Mann is a psychologist at the University of Lancashire and author of The Science of Boredom. Her research revealed that boredom, far from being a bad thing, can make us more creative. I'm sorry. I'm truly, truly, sorry. But the idea of a boredom book being written by someone named Sandi Mann just triggers every absurdist neuron in my brain. ...because Sandman? Get it? Huh? Huh? I'll be here all week. When weāre alert and fully rational, our critical, judging mind is ruling the show. Or as Mann puts it: āIf youāre daydreaming, you havenāt got that inhibition, that voice in your head saying, āDonāt be silly, thatās a ridiculous idea!ā Instead, our minds are free to roam outside the box looking for things we wouldnāt necessarily come up with when we are more conscious.ā Assertion without evidence. (That "we" can be fully rational and that "we" have critical minds.) If you want to get better at being productively unproductive, there are strategies. āSee it as an experiment and bring some lightness and play into it,ā suggests Treanor. Nah. I just want to find ways to be even more completely useless. If youāre feeling really brave, she suggests going cold turkey and sitting doing nothing for two minutes. āBe proud of yourself for having a go. Acknowledge that itās really hard and uncomfortable. You donāt have to judge yourself for not enjoying it. Next time you could try for longer.ā But that's two minutes I could have spent looking at cat videos. There's a lot more at the link. You can go visit it. Or you can do something else. Or you can do nothing. Whatever. |
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