Member-only story

WRITING|CREATIVE WRITING

Will This Be the Year of the (Downward) Dog?

The Chinese zodiac is optional, of course

Mario López-Goicoechea
ILLUMINATION
Published in
3 min readJan 4, 2025

--

I’ll bill you for the sunset later. Remember, that’s also part of the package Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Sit on the floor, cross your legs, close your eyes, rest your forearms on your thighs with the palms of your hands facing up and… let the app on your smartphone do the rest.

Yes, you read that right. Let an application that you downloaded prior to your meditation session tell you when it is time for you to be calm. Should it be before or after you go to see your boss to ask them for a payrise? Or will it be when you are asked to come to your child’s school to talk to their teacher on account of an “incident” in which your little Johnny/Joanne spat on a classmate’s face and called him the four-letter “c” word? It has been the third time this term, mind you, so you will need that app badly.

We are in the middle of a boom, apparently. No, not that type of boom, the economic one the incoming Labour government predicts we’ll benefit from in 2036. I’m talking about the mindfulness boom, the next step up from meditation, which was a step up from yoga, which was a step up from… what? Sorry, I lost count.

The irony of modern life is that to maintain the standards to which we have grown so used over the years we have to stress ourselves out in the process of achieving…

--

--

ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION

Published in ILLUMINATION

We curate and disseminate outstanding articles from diverse domains and disciplines to create fusion and synergy.

Responses (18)