But the whole point of what I wrote was NOT about forcing. If I believe I have to have breakfast I may think I’m calm and in tune but I’m not.

Do you have a rigid, fixed idea that if one eats within a 16 hour period the only possibility is that it’s about force?

I practiced the piano for a minimum of 4 hours a day when I was in music school.

I imagine that the majority of people who don’t like practicing would think that’s a terrible thing, forcing yourself to do it.

For me, I often had to make some effort to stop after 4 hours. it went by so fast, it was pure joy. Sometimes I’d practice 8 or more hours. It was all beautiful, calm, in tune.

Some people find IF a disaster, a tense, forceful out of tune, anything but calm experience. Others find it to be simple. Others find it to be joyful.

I think holding on to a rigid idea of what is calm and in tune may be as problematic as forcing oneself to follow any diet or prescription.

I love your blogs and your ideas in general, and I think your vision of in-tune calm organic living is crucial in these times.

But I wonder sometimes if without realizing it, some rigid ideas have snuck into your subconscious that inflexibly define certain activities as by definition, rigid and forced, whereas those same activities may flow spontaneously for some.