Katherine Fusco
  • Home
  • Books
  • Essays
  • Scholarly Articles
  • c.v.
  • Works in Progress
  • Contact

The Mindful Academic Writer


A Blog on Practice

Hey Householder, how many minutes do you have?

4/21/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
Daily practices are often just a matter of minutes.  The yoga that most of us practice today comes to us because the yogis discovered a need to develop a system that combined meditation, movement, sense withdrawal, and breathing techniques into an efficient practice for regular people. They called these regular people "householders." Unlike hardcore yogis who lived in caves and devoted 10 hours a day to their practice, the householder had worldly obligations: family, jobs, a house to maintain.

Most of us are householders, which means that we need systems that can be practiced in terms of minutes, not swaths of hours. And most of us are householders when it comes to both our writing and our yoga practices. We have classes that need teaching, service commitments, etc., etc. Even though writing is often a priority in academic life, perhaps the main priority, it is not the only one.

And yet...With both our writing practice and our yoga practice, we often behave as though it is outrageous that we cannot retreat to our caves and do our practice for 8 hours a day, and when we can't, we say, I don't have enough time to do yoga; I don't have enough time to write.

But we are forgetting, we're on householder time, and the householder deserves to practice, too.  And we also forget that because the most of us live and work in the householding world, this practice is liable to come in parcels of minutes, not hours, each day.

This could seem like a bummer, but the world needs householders to run along its course. And rather than thinking of what we don't have--why oh why don't I live in a gorgeous cabin in the woods where I do nothing but my totally excellent writing practice and my totally brilliant writing all day?--we can think about what we nonetheless deserve to have as householders in this world: some minutes taken aside for our daily practice. Minutes that are very precious indeed.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All


    Blogroll
    Get a Life, PhD
    getalifephd.blogspot.ie/
    GradHacker
    www.insidehighered.com/blogs/gradhacker
    The Professor is In
    theprofessorisin.com/pearlsofwisdom/
    The Thesis Whisperer
    thesiswhisperer.com/
    Tenure, She Wrote
    tenureshewrote.wordpress.com/

    ​

    Archives

    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from Ian D. Keating, Port of San Diego, Hey Paul Studios, smerikal, philosophygeek, brian.gratwicke, shirokazan, Maria Eklind, h.koppdelaney, ☺ Lee J Haywood, ninacoco, VinothChandar, apartmentshowcase, dickdotcom, Allagash Brewing, medchedli, flying_7ucy, taymtaym, blondinrikard, katerha, blumenbiene, Helga Weber, juhansonin, Evil Erin, danajackson58, Paul L Dineen, quinn.anya, Jarosław Pocztarski, Seabird NZ, wwarby, anshumanharsh, jenny downing, anna gutermuth, MacBeales, peddhapati, GreenRavenPhotography.com, gailhampshire, torbakhopper, cyberpunk65, Derek Bridges, Albion Europe ApS, Rennett Stowe, Daveness_98, Drew Coffman, 42andpointless, VinothChandar, Average Jane, h.koppdelaney, auspices, r.nial.bradshaw, Matt Callow, Lex Kravetski, nSeika, Toffee Maky, Rob.Bertholf, ilovememphis, Xtreme Xhibits, chrysav.koutroumanou, striatic, It'sGreg, Michiel Thomas, Maria Eklind, stimpsonjake, ikewinski, seyed mostafa zamani, mugwumpian, jude hill
  • Home
  • Books
  • Essays
  • Scholarly Articles
  • c.v.
  • Works in Progress
  • Contact