I am inclined to mention tools and activities that interest us while staying home and avoiding crowds.
My main tool is a computer connected to the internet. In 1984, I received a gift of the software package, Appleworks, containing a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database, which was basically an address book for any sort of listed information, not just addresses. I was charmed by its power but my friend said the internet is coming. Just wait until you grasp what being connected means. He was totally right.
I am very thankful that Amazon started selling books through the air. I began using their Kindle in 2008 and by now, I have many books I can choose from. Going back to the Amazon site and looking at my content and devices listed there in my account, I am often surprised at books I have already paid for that I forgot I have.
As I have written before, I realized about 2005 that I was benefitting from short regular meditations. I figured if the ancients of India, China and Japan could do it, so could I. I am an American with an American's background and flaws so it seems natural to look for loopholes and shortcuts to make meditation shorter, faster and more effective. Setting a timer for 10 minutes and fixing and re-fixing my attention on a single spot has indeed given me more insight into my mind, my moods and emotions. It may also be partly a result of being hypnotized twice with the express goal of seeing my world with new eyes. I am schooled to see with new wonder and to understand I am a wonder (and so are you).
When I say you and I are miracles, I am telling an everyday truth, one that matters but one that is observable, too. Here is Bill Bryson' opening:
Welcome. And congratulations. I am delighted that you could make it. Getting here wasn't easy, I know. In fact, I suspect it was a little tougher than you realize. To begin with, for you to be here now trillions of drifting atoms had somehow to assemble in an intricate and curiously obliging manner to create you. It's an arrangement so specialized and particular that it has never been tried before and will only exist this once. For the next many years (we hope) these tiny particles will uncomplainingly engage in all the billions of deft, co-operative efforts necessary to keep you intact and let you experience the supremely agreeable but generally under-appreciated state known as existence. Why atoms take this trouble is a bit of a puzzle. Being you is not a gratifying experience at the atomic level. For all their devoted attention, your atoms don't actually care about you—indeed, don't even know that you are there. They don't even know that they are there. They are mindless particles, after all, and not even themselves alive. (It is a slightly arresting notion that if you were to pick yourself apart with tweezers, one atom at a time, you would produce a mound of fine atomic dust, none of which had ever been alive but all of which had once been you.) Yet somehow for the period of your existence they will answer to a single rigid impulse: to keep you you.
Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition (pp. 17-18). Crown. Kindle Edition.
I have learned to see and appreciate what is in front of me: my hand, my body, my place, my wife, my friends. I can get all gaga in an instant but mostly I keep that to myself.
Beyond these tools, I need to mention the wifi/TV/Roku streaming that we do. We have about 20 different services, such as MIT lectures, but we only have hours and energy for Netflix, Amazon's Prime Video, Acorn, and PBS/Wisconsin Public Television.
