Max Mednik

An interesting quote from the second Zen class I went to yesterday (the third and last class in the series will be next week):

A frog can just "frog."
A bird can just "bird."
But a human cannot just "human."

The key is that animals have very little that gets in the way of their just being themselves. They can sit, eat, sleep, and most importantly focus on exactly what they want and what they feel at every instant. In this way, they are somehow able to be at peace with themselves and in touch with the world around them and with other beings much more powerfully.

But people are different. It is extremely difficult for us to just sit and think of nothing. Or just eat and enjoy our food. The main "practice" in Zen is nothing but sitting -- detaching from the world and one's thoughts and just being. Just humaning.

Why is this so hard for us? Why do we have so little control of our thoughts? What makes us different from animals? I think it's much more complicated than just the fact that we are self-aware and have "intellect." I think our ability to just human changes as we age and changes based on the situation we're in, and I think it is something that we can even learn to do better through practice.

This concept of just being and why it is difficult for us has kept my attention since the class I attended. I'm curious also about how I and other people are able to see glimmers of bright spots when we are just being or doing one specific thing very effectively -- when we're "in the zone" or able to be creative or concentrated. I'm curious about what allows us to be that way from to time and how we can do that more often.

Also, what role does technology play in all this? In some obvious ways, technology really distracts and makes us the least human I can imagine, especially when it disconnects us from establishing heartfelt and direct communications with other people and brings us further rather than closer to others. However, when used in other ways, I think (social) technology can also allow us to be more human than was ever possible before, and I'm curious how we can make that happen.

This blog post isn't really meant to answer any questions; it is meant to put out there some of the questions that have gotten me thinking and welcome others' feedback and input.

This is the second idea that I've had for a while and which has always kept me wondering.

If there was some reason why all of humanity went away except for a small group of people, how could/would they recreate the world? How would they reproduce all of our inventions and achievements? Would they do things differently? What skills would be required, and what people would you want there with you if it was you and others? What if it was just you alone?

I come to think of these questions when I appreciate the simplest conveniences in life. For example, the house or building you're sitting in right now. There are so many subtle yet complicated innovations and improvements that have allowed us to have such comfortable lives in modern buildings that I have very little knowledge about. Or our electronics, like computers, iPods, and telephones. I understand the most basic concepts behind how these devices work and if I had a long time by myself with a lot of basic tools and resources, I could probably replicate them eventually, but they would be much, much more primitive.

If I were responsible for rebuilding civilization, what knowledge would I want to have? This is to some extent what motivates me to learn in life: to become as capable as I can be if I ever have to rebuild something myself, less in a disaster-preparedness sort of way and more in a community-responsibility sort of way.

Would I want to study certain specialties like mechanical and electrical engineering much more than I did in college? Or would I want to go for breadth instead of depth so that I could build at least the most basic versions of each important part of civilization.

And the above is just about our "stuff." What about us? How would I/we structure our lives and our environment socially and politically? What systems would we keep from what we have now and what systems would we try anew? What historical mistakes would we avoid, and which would we commit again because of our human nature?

I hope that this sort of situation never happens literally, but the same sort of questions apply in a different way to our lives in our current society. Even though we are not rebuilding old stuff from scratch, we are building new stuff all the time, and we have our current government and political systems. We don't have the power to change everything at once or start from scratch in a totally new direction, but we do at least each have the responsibility to learn and advance the knowledge necessary to be good citizens and members of society. If each person believed he or she was responsible for our entire world, would we be in a better place than we are now?

I think so.

Today I've decided to blog about two ideas that I have had throughout my life. I probably thought of these concepts when I was about 15 and kept wondering about them since.

Both ideas/concepts center on somewhat unanswerable questions and which relate to much of the human experience. The first one is about simultaneity.

How many people at this exact instant in time are doing exactly what you're doing? Or, How many people at this exact instant in time around the world are doing ____ (fill in the blank with whatever you want)?

I'm sure this is a common thought that most people think about at one point or another. I've only seen in it in pop culture in the movie Amélie, in the scene where multiple people around the world are shown to be doing the same "activity."

I often think about this when I'm alone or when I'm doing something that is usually very mundane, like taking out the trash. How many people are drudging through this with me? However, the thought also comes to me when I'm doing something special, like blowing out birthday candles. It is often in such special, fleeting moments that I like to realize that with the vastness of humanity (and the similarity between people) that someone else must be doing exactly what I'm doing.

This realization makes me feel less alone and somehow connected to others that I can't see or know. Maybe someone can do an analysis of how many Twitter posts happen each instant that are about people doing the same activity. I know there are many trending Twitter topics that are popular to write and think about, and I'm less interested in how many people are thinking about the same thing than how many people are doing the same thing.

Maybe someone else out there is blogging about simultaneity as we speak. Hopefully they subscribe to my feed.

I just went to a fascinating seminar on the intersections between Zen Buddhism and Judaism. It sounded crazy to me too, which is exactly why I went.

It was held at my temple and run by our new cantor, who grew up Jewish but also found Zen and studied it devoutly. I very much respect him for his clarity of thought, precise memory for quotations and stories, and of course his amazing voice.

The seminar went through the history of both Zen Buddhist and Jewish/Kabbalistic traditions and showed how many of the most influential thinkers in each tradition were saying the same thing, but with different words. There were important differences between the two disciplines, but many of the core messages were extremely complementary and shockingly similar.

I learned way too much to write here, but I figured it would be interesting to point out the idea that resounded with me the most and the idea that was the most difficult for me to grasp.

(As an aside, both traditions teach that once you have grasped an idea, you have failed. It is in the act of grasping and striving that one learns.)

Idea I relate to the most: Having a beginner's mind.

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few." -Shunryo Suzuki-Roshi

This quote sounds very close to home for me because I am always interested in the things that I know nothing about and in how I can always improve in various ways rather than how I'm good at something. Though at times my "beginner's mind" can seem limiting, it is often what drives me to learn and study hard and to always be prepared and expect the unexpected.

Idea that I struggle with the most: Finding myself where I am and feeling the emptiness.

"If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?" -Dogen Zenji

The seminar talked a lot about the idea of non-attachment as well as of dependent co-origination -- that all things in life are somehow connected and affect each other. And it is only when we can quiet our minds and feel the emptiness around us that we can truly feel ourselves. This concept is so difficult for me and is what I'm struggling with right now -- how to quiet my mind and all my busy-ness and just be.

I've learned a lot already and look forward to the next two meetings of this seminar. In the meantime, I hope to just be with my beginner's mind.

I've been thinking a lot recently about why various social networking sites exist and succeed. What I'm most curious about is why people twitter, use facebook, post photos on flickr, etc. I'm sure there are many reasons, and each person's are different, but there must be some inner shared drive or motivation that I'm interested in learning more about.

I'm a fairly private person, but what fascinates me most about these new tools is the ability to not lose touch with people I know. When I was growing up and meeting many new friends or associates through school and camps, I always thought to myself that I would like to be able to keep in touch with everyone, but I didn't know how. I imagined keeping a very long Rolodex with everyone's contact info in it and going through it every year and just saying "hello" to each person I had met. I realized that this would quickly grow tiresome or difficult or impossible time-wise, but it was sad to give up. I remember meeting good, interesting people while traveling and always feeling sorry to have to say good-bye.

I haven't been the best at keeping in touch with everyone I know, but I hope that by understanding how to use the new tools out there effectively, I can do better. I'm wondering whether this same motivation is what fuels others to tweet or whether it's something else. Someone I recently met told me they tweet/fbook/geolocate everything for documentation purposes and to keep a permanent record of their life so they and others don't forget. At first this seemed odd, but after considering it for a while, I think this reason makes a lot of sense as well. Perhaps my sadness in leaving someone from my travels is similar to the sadness of forgetting something interesting about one's life.

I doubt I will ever really understand why others use these tools differently than I. Hopefully I can just one day understand how I want to use them for myself.

It's a fortunate coincidence that today is the launch of Google Buzz as well as my newly redesigned site. I'm still learning the ropes behind all the new social networking sites out there and figuring out how they can be most effectively linked and used together.

For me, this revolution in social media represents an opportunity to stay better connected to those I care about. I hope that can lead to unforeseen synergies and ways for me and those I know to help each other in the future.

I'll be using this site to post some of my thoughts on what I'm reading and learning about on a daily basis. In addition, it will be the home for recording my professional and personal pursuits.

Thanks for visiting, and I welcome your feedback.