I am not much into making New Year’s resolutions. Everything that typically comes to mind…more working out, more meditatation, less television…just seems so trite.
It is not that I don’t want those as resolutions — or actual changes in my life. It is just that those resolutions don’t capture the essence of my intentions.
Tonight, a mere thirteen days late for making “new year’s” resolutions, I am glad that the third of the above resolutions was broken (or bent just a little). Tonight, I was re-acquainted with a movie named Under the Tuscan Sun.
In that movie, the “crazy blond” (who turns out to have some amazingly wise lines), shares with Diane Lane’s character a bit of advice that she picked up earlier in her life (assertedly from Federico Fellini).
The advice was to “live spherically — in many directions at once.”
I am not sure why I was open to that message at that moment, but I was.
Is living spherically another description of living as a renaissance man/woman?
I don’t know. But for the rest of this year, I intend to explore a spherical life.
So…details regarding this year’s intentions:
More listening to my wife and children.
More learning how to teach my 3 year old how to teach my 9 month old about life.
More learning about the constellations so that I can spend time with my family looking up at the stars.
More learning about the fun of cooking.
More learning about food.
More learning about my job and how to pass my knowledge on to the next generation.
More learning how to protect the environment…and more actually doing something to protect it.
More learning about the philosophies of Spinoza, Richard Dawkins (mp3), E.O. Wilson (mp3).
Find four more ways to live with passon (one per quarter shouldn’t be too hard) — and practice them.
…oh, and more meditating and exercising. And less watching TV … except for movies like Under the Tuscan Sun. 
–> If you wanted to live a spherical life, how would you do it?
I’ve decided to learn to bake bread as a spiritual discipline. I’m not naturally patient enough to let the bread dough rise without watching it. So I’m trying to learn to trust the yeast, and to apply that trust and patience to the rest of my life. I’m not sure if that’s spherical, but so far it’s meant that we’ve had good bread at my house.
Ben
Ben, you are already pretty spherical.
On the bread thing…you might want to look for these two books:
Bread Upon the Waters: A Pilgrimage Toward Self-Discovery and Spiritual Truth. (Perseus Books)
The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Arts of Extraordinary Bread. (Ten Speed Press)
These are written by Brother Peter Reinhart. This link will take you to a realaudio stream of a TTBOOK episode where the opening segment is an interview of Brother Reinhart.
Enjoy. Oh, and if you have any scraps laying around….
Thans, JJ. I’ll check them out. I’m already using a cook book by Father Dominic Garramone, a Bennedictine monk. Someting about Monks and bread. I hope someday it translates into Presbyterian…
BD