I stole the following story from
href="http://mechaieh.diaryland.com">Mechaieh, because I think it may nail
exactly what's wrong with my life, why I'm so drained from work and exercise, and
why I'm having problems getting burned out from
rowing.
The flow of Divine abundance that makes the whole
earth and the whole universe fruitful depends, [the Kabbalists of Safed] said, on
human intentionality in blessing the fruits of the trees. In this way they, like
the Zohar, put enormous energy and weight into the human act of eating.
Not merely eating, but eating with intention and with proper
blessings. . .They quoted a line from the Talmud: "Whoever enjoys produce in this
world without pronouncing a blessing is called a
robber."
Now, this is a Jewish story, which means that
you could take it literally, but you'd missing the point; this is a tradition in
which people have spent 2000 years arguing over every interpretation of every
word. Though it speaks specifically of the blessing of fruits of the trees, on the
next level up (as far as I'm prepared to go here) it speaks of living mindfully,
of noticing what you do as you do it. The traditional sages would say that this is
because God created the world and therefore one should appreciate the divine in
every aspect of it and render thanks for blessings received.
I'm not
that traditional; to me the reason for mindful living is not to give thanks to God
as a sort of quid pro quo. (Though if you believe in even a Prime Mover on any
level, it does seem only polite.) This is probably a bit closer to a
Reconstructionist viewpoint, but mostly it's a poor thing and mine own. The reason
for appreciating all aspects of life is more a matter of enriching my own life, of
sqeezing all the juice from it. There are other reasons for noticing, for example,
what you eat, especially animal flesh, to acknowledge that other life is taken to
support your own. Or to pay attention to relating to other people, of respect for
them.
I'm writing in way too much of a hurry here, probably far too
much for this to be clear, but I wanted to get this first bit written out so I
have it to come back to later. I'll try to go on with it, and get more explicitly
to how this relates to work and rowing and so on.