Eclipse the FOMO
Everything is hyped up these days. It is no longer a forecast for heavy rains; instead, it is the “atmospheric river”. I was just about getting used to that phrase when my iPhone’s weather app warned of a “hydrological event”.
Even a simple and routine event in the sky, an event that has been going on for ever, the full moon, is no longer just that. The news bombards me with phrases like “worm moon” and “strawberry moon”. Isn’t “full moon” enough?
And now it is all about the eclipse. A lunar eclipse that will soon be followed by a solar eclipse is bonanza for the loud hype. Advice abounds on everything from how to watch them, the best places to watch them, and more.
Can we all please calm down!
Take a deep breath and read this short poem:
The thief, left it behind:
The moon
at the window.
I came across that verse in this essay, in which the author provides its backstory:
According to traditional lore, the Japanese Zen master and poet Ryokan Taigu, who lived from 1758 to 1831, was a happy hermit. He trained in a monastery for 10 years, then rejected conventional religion. He went on to live a simple life, meditating, writing poetry, occasionally drinking sake with rural farmers, and sharing his modest meals with the birds and beasts.
He didn’t have much to steal. But one night, a thief came to Ryokan’s spare mountain hut looking for treasure. The criminal found nothing of value and was disappointed, which saddened the Zen master. It’s said that the poet pressed his clothes—or his blanket, depending on which account you read—upon the thief, saying, “You’ve come such a long way to see me, please accept this gift.”
The stunned thief took the poet’s clothing. But he didn’t take anything that mattered to the Zen master, who reportedly spent the rest of the evening naked, gazing at the moon in the sky—a jewel that no one could steal, yet everyone can enjoy. Ryokan was still a bit sad, as he hadn’t been able to give the thief this most valuable of treasures. In his diary, the Zen master penned a now-famous poem
Now, re-read the poem:
The thief, left it behind:
The moon
at the window.
So, what is the point?
The story is told by Zen teachers to remind students that most people are attached to things that don’t really matter, while missing the marvels that abound in the natural world.
Indeed!
I vividly recall the hype in the days and months prior to the total solar eclipse in summer 2017. Well, hype is one hell of an understatement.
Where I live was just a few miles away from totality. We did not care. A former colleague, whose home was smack in the zone of totality, advised me, bugged me, to get up to one of those places. He said what most people said to me: “It is a once in a lifetime event”.
I didn’t argue with him or others who wanted me to experience the totality, the darkness, the sudden drop in temperature. I merely smiled and nodded. What I wanted to tell him and others was this: Every breath that we take is a once in a lifetime event. Every second that we are alive is a once in a lifetime event. Every moon that we see is a once in a lifetime event.
I suspect that the worry that one might miss the “once in a lifetime event” is really a modern, very recent, Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO for short.
It is not that FOMO is new. Kids even back in the prehistoric analog era in which I grew up feared missing out, were worried that the cool kids were doing exciting things, and perhaps phoned each other to find out what was going on. Adults too were no different, though it was a different kind of a fear that they were missing out.
The web and social media have vastly amplified this fear of missing out. People see postings on social media, for instance, of “friends” who are vacationing, at music concerts, living in fancy homes, at a solar eclipse party, at whatever, and FOMO fever reaches high temperatures.
I do not feel compelled to disconnect from mainstream life, but I do worry a lot about the state of humanity in which quite a bit of life is driven by FOMO. FOMO apparently is so overwhelming that people feel the urge to reach for their smartphones even when they are socializing in the real world with fellow humans.
For a healthy life, one might want to ditch FOMO and cultivate JOMO—the joy of missing out.
A prerequisite for jomo is to learn to value our limited time and how it is spent. In doing so, we create opportunities to experience the joy of being present. We value what we have, rather than worrying about what we may be missing out on.
Two nights ago, I woke up bright eyed and looked at the clock by my bedside. It is an old digital clock radio. I got that as a freebie from the first Visa card that I got soon after I started graduate school in 1987. After I had spent (and paid) whatever amount it was in that first year, I got that clock radio for free. It is at least 35 years old, maybe even 36.
Even though I was bright eyed, the time was only 1:30 on the clock radio. Jet lag is not easy to overcome as I age. In the old days, when I was a graduate student, I suffered no jet lag whatsoever. Now, it drags me down for a few days and nights.
There I was wide awake at 1:30. Through the windows, through the gaps in the curtains, moonlight streamed in. Bright moonlight. I was thankful for the jet lag; else, I would not have known the pleasure of lying in bed and enjoying the moonlight at that hour.
There’s much to be marvel about every day. Marvel about those once in a lifetime moments.