One Hundred and Eight...

This is the hundred and eighth Yoga for Cynics post...108 is an important number in the Yogasphere...for some reason...I could google it, yes, but wouldn’t that just take the fun out of everything?...I mean, what if I googled “meaning of life” and then, scrolling beneath the IMDB, Wikipedia, and Amazon entries for the Monty Python movie of that name, found out exactly what it is? Wouldn’t that just ruin the whole “quest for truth” concept—particularly the part about the journey being more important than the destination? But I digress...

Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

...as previously mentioned, the inspiration for this blog came from a yoga and writing retreat I attended in Mexico...where I’ll be again in less than a month...woo-hoo!...and where we did approximately 108 sun salutations on the last day...and I consider writing this blog to be part of my yoga practice...regardless of whether that makes sense to anybody else...so, in that sense, this right here is Yoga for Cynics’ 108th sun salutation...the conclusion of the first big cycle...woo-hoo!

Look around again

It's the same old story

You see, it's got to be

It says right here on page 43...
David Crosby

...today’s also my forty-third birthday...to get really whiftily metaphorical about it, the turning of the 43rd page in my life...god...I promise never to get so whiftily metaphorical again....I don’t understand what that David Crosby song’s about, anyway...but, that’s probably fitting...every year is another big step into the unknown...and that’s probably a good thing...one thing I’m sure of: we’re not here to be bored...

Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Rene Magritte, The Human Condition

Is it possible to plagiarize yourself? If so, we’re probably doing it constantly. I know I am...imitating myself, as well as being highly critical of what are often shoddy, dissolute, unconvincing performances. I am not, I’m afraid, anything like my own Tina Fey. Then, isn’t much of life little more than bad acting? And isn’t that understandable, with such nonsensical scripts? Like Liam Neeson playing a Jedi knight with a mullet more appropriate for a monster truck rally than inter-galactic combat, aren’t we simply working with what we’re given? People talk a lot about the importance of being yourself—from Polonius’ to thine own self be true to Mr. Rogers’ you’re special! to Monty Python’s “You’re all individuals!” “Yes! We’re all individuals!” to those lame-ass red and white Be You t-shirts for sale at the Boston University bookstore when I went there....so, whoever the hell you are, it’s obviously pretty damn important. I will not speak lightly of it. Trust me.

I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know some people are terrified of the bomb. But then some people are terrified to be seen carrying a modern screen magazine. Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.
Bob Dylan

A sudden death in the family is upsetting for lots of reasons, of course—a lot more than I’m about to go into here, and, anyway, to communicate any fraction of them effectively would be to tell the complete life stories of all involved, and even then there’d be countless unfillable holes in the plot...the conclusion in particular not making one lick of discernible sense...like if Moby Dick had ended while they were right in the midst of chasing the whale, or the closing credits started running on Gilligan’s Island while it still seemed like they might get off the island this week....All in all, it’s difficult to shake the idea that life isn’t a novel or sitcom, or anything else that might have any chance of obeying the narrative rules we try so hard to lay down....There are a lot of ends, but few satisfying conclusions, and more perfect comebacks are spoken in a single Oscar Wilde play than you’re likely to manage in your entire life....