Giuseppe Longhi:
Mediterende filosoof [Meditating philosopher] (1776-1831)

Old man (philosopher) sitting in front of the window, in a dark room, with a spiral staircase on the right. The light falls in through an arc-shaped window on his open book. On the right, a servant tending the fire.

"I feel wealthy beyond all reason."

I am contemplative by nature. I spend nearly three-quarters of an hour meditating every day, half in the morning and the balance in the afternoon. I have maintained this routine for more than fifty years, rarely missing a session, for I consider my Contemplation to be my sole competitive advantage, even though my practice never was in any way a competition. (Though I do find the concept of competitive meditation hillarious!) I consider my practice advantageous because I believe it enables me to be, like punctuation enables a coherent sentence to exist. A deliberate stopping for a few minutes seems to pay deep respect for momentum, acknowledging that it never comes from nothing and can be easily over-used if not doled our deliberately. It enables me to be something other than an outlet for kenetic energy, to slow down and perhaps better see the soup I swim through.

I hold the purpose of my Contemplation to be a necessary purposelessness. I allow the other twenty-three hours and change to be arrainged for purposeful pursuit. My contemplative time ceases and desists. I allow the friction building up against my forward progress to disperse. I permit my monkey mind to climb down out of the tree for a few minutes. I set aside my sometimes frantic pursuits, sometimes even at inconvenient times, because that's been my practice. This was not always my practice, though once exposed to it, once I learned that there was nothing for me to learn before I could engage, I became a dedicated practitioner, though I am in no way evangelical about this. I believe that I could not have become who I have become without this practice in my life, though this assertion could not possibly be disprovable. I hold this principle to be self-evident. It need not be that way for anyone but me.

I get especially contemplative before engaging in a significant effort. I find it opens me up to stumble upon insights that seem to render challenges less daunting. Rather than rushing into an engagement, I'll hang back a bit before entering the often disabling context within which great challenges always exist. The context resident there can render even intuition and knowledge bare and leave me feeling even more inept than usual, which is really saying something. My imposter, perhaps my most well-developed character, can try on any personna it cares to in contemplation without having to worry about succeeding or failing in actual application. I can even fail to maintain my beginner's mind and still succeed when medidating, and frequently do.

When contemplating, whatever emerges during the period counts as successful. If I enter with the intention of emptying my mind and my mind fills up instead and springs a leak or two, that outcome counts as successful because that's what happens. Our here in the non-contemplative world, successes and failures might be easily descerned, but in the contemplative world, every outcome can be properly judged successful because it's what actually happened. It happened that way and so it might just as well have been meant to be. It occurred so it proves superior to every competing non-emergent alternative. One of the innumerable keys to successful contemplation remains the acceptance of whatever happens as success. This sure seems easy to say but might remain a contuing challenge for me until well after my dying day.

I tell myself that at least I'm getting practice with acceptance, not that everyone, all the time, isn't. It just seems to me that my setting aside some time each day to expose myself to the possibility of success, especially success on something other than my terms, might serve to build up some resilience to failures. I stumble plenty. I bounce into and inevitably off of my share of brick walls. My life isn't simply a rose garden, either, though The Muse and I do maintain a rose garden out our livingroom window. I think of my Contemplation as similar to maintaining a rose garden. Rose gardens tend to be a pain in the butt because they need tending. Miss a week deadheading and we might just as well have been keeping a windy weed patch. Stay true to this one small intention and the possibility exists to experience the scent of a freshly bloomed Peace rose and to see the brilliant color of a freshly-popped Henry Fonda.

I know of no way to undo the influence over fifty years of fealty has given me. I've always secretly considered this intangible to be my sole source of wealth. It was never what I created or the good and bad works I've left behind, but the enduring potential excusing myself twice each day has produced, a value just as inestimable as it is invisible. The most valuable must ultimately be the most intangible. I feel wealthy beyond all reason.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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