Technology & Buddhism - What A Concept

Got myself a tablet about a month ago.

A 10" Amazon Fire tablet with which I have fallen in love.

As you know I am trying to improve my brain. Exercise it, muscle it up and stimulate it so I can become competitive and competent in my golden years.

Before I fade away into a distant memory, a mere wisp of a thought of a life once lived. An ex-Joe, a bump in the road of life, soon to be razed and paved over.

OK - I think I have exhausted that line of thought.

We watch a lot of Red Sox. Every goddamn night that there is a game.

I have no problem with this. Carol loves the Sox, they make her happy. I want her to be happy. If THE PATS played 162 games a year I would watch every goddamn one. And I would be happy.

Baseball presents an opportunity for me. It does not require concentration - it is slow moving and generally unaware. As opposed to football, which is crisp and exciting and filled with split second violence and grace - football demands your attention. If you lose your concentration watching a football game than you are probably already dead.

I try to use baseball time constructively. Used to slam my laptop into my lap and read stuff. NY Times, PATS website; look stuff up - you know, actually use my brain.

Invariably one of our precious cats would settle into my lap and I would shift the laptop to the arm of the anti-ambition chair. Tried to make it work but it was awkward; in fact it sucked.

I bought the tablet to save the day, and save the day it has. Now I can muscle up my thoughts even with a precious pet in my lap.

Yesterday I committed a heinous crime.

Of course I have been exploring the tablets capabilities and yesterday I was checking out kindle books.

I downloaded a 24 page "book" on Buddhism. It was free. How could I possibly pass that up? Now I have Buddhism at my fingertips. Admittedly in summary but it is exactly what I need right now. Along with intelligence I am trying to acquire peace of mind.

I am a book lover. The walls of this house groan with the strain of containing my books. Especially since I have semi-retired - I read every day of the week now. I am ripping through books like the blade of a guillotine through an innocent man's neck.

I love to hold books in my hands, I smell them when they are new, I collect them, I treasure them.

I am anti kindle.

However, I am flexible (I hear my wife and sons laughing). I think the use of the tablet to study stuff like Buddhism is a perfect solution. For me, anyway.

Does this portend the beginnings of the classic slippery slope? Will I start buying books through kindle and eventually burn every book in my house?

No fucking way.