Hey Joe, Whaddya Know?


“Hey Joe! Whaddya know?”

















Sketch of children learning to play marbles







In the aggregate, life's hard. Being mindful in one's life is harder still.


I've been around since the mid-1950s. These senses of mine have dropped a lot of stuff into my mind.

Doodle of a person sitting in front of. Computer on a desk surrounded by a ribbon of memories

I was reminded of this whilst watching a GHO (Google Hang Out) recording for a Humanizing Online Instruction MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) I'm taking. Being mindful was the topic of discussion.

I'm afraid I didn't do so well being mindful whilst watching. It was difficult sitting and focusing my attention on the GHO. I kept being reminded of stuff in my memory. Rather than being mindful I was windful: Thoughts, feelings and memories kept blowing past my awareness as I tried to place what I was learning into the patterns of what I know.

It's Week 0 of the course. I'm wondering how others are doing being mindful? The presenter initially talked about backgrounds, how it's not only about talking heads on screens. It's also about their environment: What's behind the head? That's when I noticed the band of memories around me. I think I was looking for connections and so began browsing memories.


Life's hard. My first impression is that it's going to be hard being human during the class given my tendency towards windfulness. I'm looking for connections. That should be easy, right? I mean there are 100s (1000s?) of other humans in there with me. Right?