When Mara Attacks

Yesterday morning T.R. and I were talking about G.K. Chesterton's "The Suicide of Thought".  If you have never read the work, in his essays, you might find it interesting.  There are also numerous websites that talk about the work. T.R. had send me this link, to the Snoring Scholar:

The Suicide of Thoughts on the Snoring Scholar

http://snoringscholar.com/2011/02/the-suicide-of-thought-thoughts-on-orthodoxy/

Which, combined with the conversation, started my mind thinking about it.

"Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation."

Well, that set off, in the course of the day, a full blown wrestling match with Mara. Running the full gamut of my activities and interests and the spheres of my life, Mara probed hard for weaknesses, looked for the chance to divert me from my course, to drag me, kicking and screaming, into the world of attachment.  It was about a six hour battle, a constant running commentary in the back of mind as I moved through the day.  When I recognized it for what it was - it ceased (which is the nature of Mara of course).  All in all though, it was a  pretty impressive wrestling match.

It was played out against the background of a pretty good day.  I had breakfast with Tony, then we went and saw "Safe House" with Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Brendan Gleason and Vera Farmiga.  It was an enjoyable action adventure piece.  From there, I stopped at OSH and picked up four new black t-shirts, then over to Santa Clara Billiards and shot nine racks of pool with Don (final score, Rod 7, Don 2 - but don't be impressed, prior to yesterdays session I'd lost 11 in a row).  From there, we stopped at Thea Mediterranean in Santana Row for lunch, where I had the Salmonos Piaki, Eggplant Mashed Potatoes, Sauteed Spinach and Flat Bread with grilled lamb, cheese, tomato and spices.  It was an excellent lunch.  After that, it was home for a quiet evening and a great discussion with T.R., where we talked about my wrestling match with Mara.

This morning has been a good morning so far, I slept it, I showered, I drank coffee, I ran my anti-virus scans, I synched my iPod and my iPad (having completed loading all of my CD's onto iTunes).  Now, I am about to head out and get some breakfast, then I am planning on a walk through of Fry's and probably a stop at Target to pick up some incidental stuff for my trip this week.

Daily Life: Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival

Today was the second day of the Sunnyvale Art & Wine festival, so that was the centerpiece of the day. It has been an excellent weekend and I am wrapping it up relatively tired. I awoke early this morning, spend some time online, wandering the wilds of the internet, and learning to use Tweetdeck (for Twitter) with T.R. It was a good morning, that ended in high spirits.

Then, I went up to the festival with Pierre and Helen, had a nice lunch at Tao Tao in downtown Sunnyvale, wandered the festival and looked at the arts, crafts, and people and took some pictures. (I will transfer the pictures from the camera to Flickr sometime this week - with the new computer I have to instally Adobe Photoshop on it, which I have not got around to yet.) After the festival we stopped at Cupertino Square for ice cream at Coldstone Creamery and I picked up Volume 11 in Bill Willinghams "Fables" series at Legends.

From there, I swung over to meet Tony at Carrows for dinner (Belgium Waffle) and conversation about our favorite topic - science fiction! Then, I swung home, watched an HBO movie about Winston Churchill starring Brendan Gleason, took a hot bath and an unintentional nap. I swear, I just laid down for a moment and slept about an hour. Woke up for a phone call and came online to make this journal entry, and now I am going to go read myself to sleep. It is going to be a short read since I am already fighting to keep my eyelids open.

All in all it has been an excellent summer weekend here in San Jose.