308. Oatmeal

I’m going to start eating more oatmeal. I know it’s not the most exciting breakfast. I know that it tastes like soggy cardboard. I know that it’s usually the choice of old people. I just need more simple things in my life. There are advertisements for products that will give you protein, or that will help you trim belly fat, or ones that will make you feel full without being groggy. Or there are big companies trying to pull of “natural and sustainable” when you know they were just added in as buzzwords at the last minute by some marketing executives. I want something boring.

Boring is underrated. Consistency is underrated. Healthful is underrated. Oatmeal is all of those things. 2016 is the year of making the complex simple. The whole world has felt out of control at times. There’s been despair, anger, frustration, and a big ‘ol sense of WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON. I don’t want to get caught up in a cycle of despair anymore.

So I think step one in fighting that is making sure you have a good breakfast. I’m a lunch guy, but I have total respect for breakfast. Breakfast gets no respect. People are always sleeping in and then they are in a hurry. They don’t have time to just sit down and percolate to start the day. I live for those few moments of silence and simplicity before I start my day. It’s very underrated. I think an easy way to do that is to make some dang oatmeal and enjoy it for 20 minutes before I get on with my day.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be mindful of things. It’s so easy to give in to despair. I think it takes courage to be optimistic. It takes courage to facing problems and not giving in. It takes courage to refuse cynicism. I think all of those things would be more easily accomplished if everyone just had a dang good breakfast before they went on Twitter and ranted about whatever they thought was bugging them during the day. Making opinions and decisions on an empty stomach is always a bad idea.

We also live in the think piece and hottake era. Every minutiae  of political and pop culture has to be dissected a billion ways before you can enjoy it. Everyone has an opinion about something and now there is very little stopping you from throwing that opinion into the world. I really don’t think that’s a good thing. Just because you have a microphone, it doesn’t mean that you have to use it.

Oatmeal simplifies that. Very few people have opinions about oatmeal. Well, plain old unflavored oatmeal that is. I respect that about a product. Very few things are able to stick around for that long without eliciting furious takes from the culture. I just want things to slow down for a little bit, and I think that will start with some oatmeal.