During a break for a mostly boring somewhat interesting taxi training course I decided to go for a walk. Nearby there is a river. That was my destination. I arrived, ate, and strolled along the bank. I started to take pictures of the scenery. I noticed the trash along the shore. It was background noise, something that my mind has adapted to, something 'normal'. However that did not last for long.
I'm not sure what triggered it, but spontaneously I felt the desire to pick up the rubbish. I, instinctive, looked around. I was concerned about what an(the)other person would think about me picking up rubbish that was not even mine. It was not my rubbish. Why should I pick it up? Then I decided to act. I actually, to my surprise, started to pick up rubbish that was not my rubbish. It was an(the)other person's rubbish.
Then, in the distance, I saw another person. I hesitated. Then continued to pick up rubbish. Coke bottles, styrofoam, plastic bags, potatoe chip packets, and more were nabbed by my fingers regardless of their dirtiness. And I actually enjoyed it on some level. After letting go of the idea of what an(the)other may think of my doing such an act I actually started to enjoy cleaning up whatever it was I could clean up. I rubbished my own rubbish. I threw my egoic, personal rubbish into the bin of transformation. Into the compactor of consciousness. Into the incinerator of integration.
I started to feel the environment in which I was in and cleaning to be 'my' environment. I knew this at the same time as I knew it to be an(the)other's environment as well. It was 'our' environment. The rubbish I was seeing on the bank of the river disrupted my experience so much so that I felt moved to remove such in order to 'harmonise' my experience of myself. The more space I cleaned the more my experience was harmonised and when I cleaned a space so that there was no rubbish there I felt a pleasure and pride. It's Plato's The Good, The True, and The Beautiful. Well at least the last one. I felt moved by the beauty of the bank without rubbish on it.
Then I became aware of the time. Break over. I choose to go back to the taxi seminar. As I was walking back I reflected upon how by throwing out my own personal rubbish I can enter into a more encompassing feeling state while helping to clean up the environment. At first I was conflicted between my own spontaneous desire to act and the thought of an(the)other in my mind. The Other was a person, or the idea of a person who was looking at me thinking what I was doing was 'not good' or 'not normail' or whatever. Thus, I hesitated and didn't act. Then I went along with the action. 'The Other', my own personal rubbish, dissolved into who I was at that moment: the spontaneous desire to pick up rubbish. I, for a moment, touched a novel experience in my being. If I do that again, and again and again... Well, that is how picking up rubbish can be a transformative practice.
