Vipanasana

The anchorwoman, about to roll film of Russian soldiers supposedly patrolling Kiev, said, "when you see it it makes you bieve how real it is."

It's the year I watch too much basketball, know which team is in first place and which is in last, and why. The sports producer who once told me basketball was the simplest sport to broadcast is dead. Put the cameras at half-court, not too high and not too low, and follow the players. "Much simpler than golf or football," he said, other sports I watched too much of.

More and more gray appears in my hair I become more aware of nuance and of certain disparities between thoughts and deeds that I failed to detect in the past. The number of people who use the phrase, "to be perfectly honest with you," grows dramatically as does the silence in the room whenever anyone tells the truth.

Vipanasana is a meditation technique, a practice in which self-transformation is encouraged through self-observation. You stay silent for 12 days. It's said that when you eat an orange, for instance, in the midst of Vipanasana, that orange is the sweetest orange you've ever tasted. I suspect though the taste of the orange is meant to make you aware of your hunger.