Meditation

"Driven", "energetic", "confident", "efficient", "productive", "professional" - all these words I have been trying to apply to myself in a desperate bid to transform myself into the ideal candidate for anaesthetics training at a major tertiary hospital in metropolitan Melbourne. Immersion in the culture of medicine has certainly served to drive me in this direction - one that would surely see me succeed at becoming that inevitable ultra-efficient utility within a public health system that is ever seeking greater efficiency, in a world/society that seeks that same end.

I wonder whether this is a healthy thing at all - efficiency.

In our bid to stamp out waste, efficiency as measured by production per unit time is promoted as the highest ideal, almost without question. No longer can we rest in the knowledge that our job is done - forever work accumulates in front of us in a never ending pattern of futility as we strive to see our list of jobs disappear completely. If, perchance, we encroach on earning a break, a rest, then all of a sudden we realise we must have forgotten something crucial - through furrowed brow, we search, trying to remember what we next needed to do - always there is something more to be accomplished.

I wonder whether it is better to see this for what it is - futile.

This cycle of modern life churns our personalities into mindless machines, preventing us from gaining true independence - a perspective that is lost to us, as we gaze through frosted eyes in the belief that our independence can truly be gained only through the daily grind. If only our lives could be turned the right way up again, and we could see life for what it truly is - or rather, what it truly should be.

I wonder whether there is more than just futility - purpose?

Meaning in our lives can only be gained by a change of pace - hard to come by in the scheduled life. The songs that resonate most strongly in my head are those that speak of stillness, patience, solitude. Waiting. Slowing down. Only then can we understand our purpose - because it exists well beyond the immediate and tactile reality that we are trapped within. So many things glow with the promise of gratification that they delude us, luring the unwary to accept the notion that all that exists is what is seen, and nothing further. How depressing! Slow down. Wait. Quiet your soul. Listen.

As the old adage goes - less is more. Go. Meditate.

"Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul..." - Psalm 131:2 (ASV)