Thinking About Stuff (And Breathing)!

I just read an article here on Medium, this one in fact: https://medium.com/the-haven/you-took-my-breath-away-and-now-im-dead-dc5c320a8d04
and it made me think, about things. I smiled inwardly as I read the article as well, but thinking was my main thing, as I read it.

What I was thinking, or wondering, (are wondering and thinking the same thing? I suspect the truth is that wondering is a form of thinking) anyway, I was wondering did the writer of this article realise they could save some of their breaths by breathing more slowly.

And that breathing slowly instead of gasping down the air rapidly, like they were afraid it was going to run out. well that’s actuallu good for you, and you’ll live lomger. Or you might, but if you’re the kind of person who breathes slowly, and blisses out when crossing the road, that slow breathing might actually bring on an early death.

So while breathing slowly is good for you, being careful when on the road is important too, if you want to stay alive, obviously. Thinking about that, reminded me about an idiot I saw driving on the road today, and really, sometimes I wonder if some people should even be allowed to drive they’re so stupid!

This person passed us (as we were driving along), when there wasn’t enough room ahead to see if anything was coming, because of the curve of the road. They ended up driving over the solid white line along th middle of the road. In Austalia, that is definitely not a thing you’re supposed to do. If there’d been a police officer about, that pweson would have been fined for that!

But it’s that old story — There’s never a copper about when you need one, right? Right. Anyway, thinking about that idiot on the road could easily upset a person, me anyway, but I’m working hard at becoming a Zen kind of person, so I simply calmly drove the rest of the way to where I was headed. Breathing slowly and steadily, and not letting myself get all ‘het up’.

Remaining calm when others are carrying on like headless chickens is one of my special abilities. It makes me realise I was already a Stoical kind of personm, even before I began reading the writing of that absulute master of Stoicism, the former emporer of Rome. So as combination of Zen (as I understand it) and Stoicsm, as well as some untutored Budhhism leads me along a calm and largely trouble free path in my life.