Running With Scissors

Mindful Eggducation

It's not often we realize how weird and bizarre our world actually is, and that things that we take for granted are a product of either decades of ingenuity or incredible and astounding coincidences.

Let's do a little experiment to illustrate our point. That's right! This chapter is going to be an interactive adventure!

Go to your fridge, assuming you have one, and retrieve an egg. It can be any kind of egg, except a Faberge egg. Why would you have a Faberge egg in your fridge? Pretty weird if you ask us.

Anyways, study the egg. Think about how it tastes. It's texture. Feel how hard its shell is. Products made with eggs are everywhere, from pasta to bread and everything in between. A cupcake? Egg. Mayonnaise? Egg. A Halloween prank? Egg. It would be hard to find more versatile product.

Now tell me: who was the first weirdo who saw a chicken literally poop an egg out of its ass and thought "Well, that looks tasty"?

Think about it. What is an egg if not a chicken period? But we still consume it en masse. Not to mention the disturbing implications that fried chicken presents us by bathing a chicken in its own unborn offspring.

We're so caught up in our daily routines that we fail to appreciate the absolute madness of the world around us. Certain thinkers have come up with a solution to this otherwise ignored problem, and it's through the practice of Mindfulness.

You can put the egg back in the fridge if you haven't already.

Mindfulness is a mental process in which we discard the burdens of the past and everything else momentarily and focus on the experiences occurring at the present time. Think of it like not recording every second of that Maroon 5 concert for your Instagram followers and just sit there and enjoy the concert, assuming a Maroon 5 concert can actually be enjoyed.

It is often achieved with meditation and deep breathing. And it works wonders for depression, anxiety, and all other stress disorders. In fact, let's have a mindfulness exercise.

Sit cross-legged on the floor. Put a cushion down if it makes you feel more comfortable. Disconnect your phone and put it on airplane mode. We don't want any disturbance for the next 5 minutes.

Now close your eyes. Wait, open them again. We need you to read this.

For the next five minutes, you're going to blank your mind. Don't think about work or your problems, or that awkward moment you had in school where you accidentally called your teacher "mom" and everyone laughed. It doesn't matter right now. Clear your mind.

For the next five minutes, you're only going to focus on your own breathing. Feel your chest expand with every inhalation, and flatten with every exhalation. Only focus on that. Don't focus on anything else. Only breathing. No problem. Only breathing. For five minutes.

Now you may close your eyes. Don't worry, we will wait.

Are you done? Good. Now that you have put a pause in your life, you can better appreciate the madness that surrounds you. You're living in the now. Welcome. Not many people have the illumination that you have at this moment.

Peter Katz was having such a moment of illumination when he saw his face plastered all over the news, but it wasn't as enlightening as he thought. His moment of Mindfulness came with the realization that every decision he had made until that point, all the way from birth, had been a mistake.

"We are here with the wounded officer," said a peppy news reporter. "Could you please tell what happened?"

"Yes, I am Officer Davidson Dryclean Only. That's Massimo's name," said a one eyed, bald man. "Famous lawyer and gypsy secretary stabbed Officer Davidson Dryclean Only inside arm when trying to have delicious pizza. Top New York! No apple of pines."