complicated

When I visited Audrey last Monday in Kaohsiung, she picked me up at the HSR station in a white Lexus that I'd never seen before. Not really a wonder as I hadn't visited in over three years. I got in and also wasn't too surprised at the feeling that technology has left me far behind.

I mean, I could probably drive the car easy enough, but incorporating any technological details would require some degree of learning curve. The dash and the controls would take familiarizing. The rear-view screen when the car is in reverse would no doubt have me bumping into cars first time around. Although I can see the convenience in that technology, I have also always been able to park perfectly well without it.

The Bluetooth phone connection had me shaking my head at how complicated my cousin's life is. And despite her desire to simplify once she moves to the U.S., the fabric of her current life is already complicated and it won't be so easy to break away from habit. I know from experience.

It was my ideal when I moved to Taiwan to live a simple, hermit-like existence, but years later I looked at the clutter of my apartment and wondered "where did all of this stuff come from?!". It was the day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month habit of wanting this or that or thinking I needed this or that.

Even with mindfulness practice in place and being watchful of being a consumer animal, one thing always leads to another. Years later I find myself with an apartment full of stuff.

The past few years have been helpful. I think my reaction to the complexity of my cousin's life is a result of my years of not wanting anything or wanting to do anything, even eat. Since the torpor ended, I've been engaged in a slow process of house cleaning and getting rid of the clutter.

But the temptations still arise.

Recently my landlord (Audrey's uncle) upgraded the internet/cable in this property. Simply said, what I had thought were my simple habits regarding watching TV have gotten more nuanced, ergo complicated.

There's good and bad. Complicated is bad just in itself. But the good is the scattering of those simple habits I had come to expect and around which I had come to live my life. I have to let go of those habits and adapt to being technologically upgraded without going overboard. I'll see how well I do with that once he installs a promised (not asked for) flat screen LED TV.