Juggling chainsaws while riding a bike on a tightrope blindfolded.

Truth at 24 frames per second.

Multitasking is a lie.

It’s entirely possible that this whole life thing is a lot less complicated than I’ve been making it out to be.

It’s possible that the entirety of my 35 years of formal zen practice and 62 years of living-on-earth practice boil down to just a simple, bare fact. The magic trick to living is that there’s no magic trick to living: nothing more to life than just doing the next thing. That’s the one true thing. Startlingly simple.

Zen teachers have been saying exactly that for at least a thousand years.

This morning I’ve been shuttling between mixing and turning dough, making phone calls, sending and answering emails, grocery shopping, and composing this post —while also performing dozens of other tiny actions so quickly I barely register performing them. Brushing my teeth, bringing in the mail, feeding the cat, and on and on. A million quotidian things adding up to a morning.

I might be inclined to describe the morning as multitasking. We use the phrase all the time to describe that feeling of juggling multiple tasks at the same time, maybe at the edge of control — a feeling which, when you break it down, is completely ridiculous. In fact, in terms of pure physics, multitasking is impossible.

None of us ever actually multitask. What we’re doing (and calling it multitasking) is switching between tasks at a faster rate than maybe we believe, or think, or know, we might, ordinarily.

There are endless instances of apparent multitasking, to be sure. Say, sitting in on a zoom meeting while answering emails, or, more radically, riding a bike while juggling chainsaws.

(I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home, by the way).

Not multitasking, either.

Let’s take a second and really dig into the mechanics of that very exciting bike ride. Looking deeply into how the activity breaks down, it’s really just a sped-up version of one-thing-at-a-time.

Pedal the bike, toss the first chainsaw, pedal the bike, pass the second chainsaw to my left hand, pedal the bike, toss the second chainsaw, pedal the bike, pass the third chainsaw to my left hand, pedal the bike, catch the first chainsaw, pedal the bike, quickly toss the third chainsaw, pedal the bike, pass the first chainsaw to my left hand, pedal the bike, catch the second chainsaw, pedal the bike, quickly toss the first chainsaw, pedal the bike, pass the second chainsaw to my left hand, pedal the bike, catch the third chainsaw, pedal the bike, quickly toss the second chainsaw, pedal the bike, pass the third chainsaw to my left hand, pedal the bike, and on and on until I either (eventually?) lose my balance, miss or drop one (or all) of the chainsaws, and incur catastrophic damage to hands, head, chest, legs, or torso, and bike.

What I’m really doing on the bike with those chainsaws (aside from risking life and literally limb) isn’t multitasking: it’s rapid-fire stop-motion execution of a series of single tasks. Tasks dangerous and delicate enough to require absolute attention and hair-trigger shifting of focus at mind-numbing (and potentially life-altering) speed while maintaining level balance, for certain.

Simple enough, really. One thing at a time. Just really, really, fast.

Single frames of action sped up to 24 frames per second: the magic trick, like the quick shuffle of still images that construct a film, of convincing myself into believing the illusion of seamless action. The lie of multitasking!

We’re always riding a bike while juggling chainsaws. In fact, since we’re actually just performing one task at a time, — what the hell — let’s pile on and add a tightrope and blindfold to the mix. Why not go ahead and add reciting the alphabet backwards while we’re pedaling? What could possibly go wrong?

The beauty of actual living (and, the trick of practicing and performing circus tricks) is that you don’t worry about losing your balance and dropping the chainsaws. We learn one thing at a time. Life unfolds a single task and a single action — a single moment — at a time. A single frame. The film director Jean-Luc Godard once described film as ‘truth, at 24 frames per second.’ He had a point. And not just about film.

Life is flowing to be sure, from one moment to the next moment to the next, and expressing itself perfectly one task, one breath, at a time. A pretty simple truth.

Whether I’m awake to it in the moment or not, I’m performing the magic trick of doing each thing exactly one thing at a time. I actually can’t do anything else, just like I can’t be anywhere else than right here. Physics prevents me from being in two places simultaneously, and prevents me from performing multiple tasks simultaneously. If there’s really a trick, it’s the trick of embracing that exceptionally simple truth and embracing it wholeheartedly. Living truth, one thing at a time. Doing the next thing. And the next thing. Trusting in the emergence of truth out of the wholehearted commitment to just this one thing.

Juggling chainsaws while riding a bike on a tightrope blindfolded reciting the alphabet backwards.

Why the hell not? It’s the only life I’ve got. One simple, true thing at a time.

Your comments are always welcomed and encouraged. We’d love to hear from you.

One more thing.

As a zen priest I’m a student of Tenshin Fletcher Roshi at Yokoji Zen Mountain Center. For more info on Yokoji, please visit www.zmc.org.

I’m also the caretaker of Warwick Zendo, a small in-person and online sangha based in the lower Hudson Valley of New York. if you’d like to check out our practice community, we’re at www.warwickzen.org.

How this works.

I plan to post at least once a week, at minimum. The Freeside offers those weekly posts, which will always be accessible. Payside will (eventually) offer access to some longer writing and ongoing investigations into practices both literary and zen.

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