“Medding” is a word I made up while working on my new book. I needed it to fill a vacancy in my vocabulary. I was missing a catch-all term that included every imaginable awareness-type activity. I’ve been using the term medding for a while now, and test-driving it on other medders, who then start using it right away as if they’d been using it all along. That tells me that this really is a useful word.
MEDDING the noun: Many things are medding. Meditation is medding. Yoga is medding. Medding includes every act of mindfulness, such as mindful standing, sitting, walking, and lying down. And mindful eating and drinking. And mindful hearing and listening. And mindful stopping. And of course it includes any attention you put on your breathing, such as following the ins and outs, or counting, or altering, or belly breathing, or just noticing. Watching your own thoughts and feelings come and go is medding. Basically, any type of intentional coming back to or remaining in the present by way of paying attention to what is observable in the herenow is medding.
MEDDING the verb: It means to do any of that stuff in the previous paragraph.
And now, in keeping with one of the great traditions of wordsmithing, I shall use the word medding in a sentence:
“I was doing some medding the other day, at the grocery store, in the cereal aisle, and I noticed that there were many brightly colored boxes.”
That was fun. How about some more…
“It’s good to start with medding in the morning.”
“Monks are medders who med all day.”
“I haven’t medded all day and I feel like crap.”
“Poker and medding do mix.”
Which will be in my book, now that I have a word for it.
10 Responses to “Medding”
Are you sure that shouldn’t be “Monks are medders who are medding all day.” ?
Jesse has spotted a problem. The verb form cannot be “medding.” English doesn’t forbid such verbs but it sure is awkward because the gerund form would then be “meddinging.”
So it has to be “med” and the infinitive would be “to med” — and now you’ve got other obvious problems.
But the idea is cool…..
Meow.
What’s your new book going to be about?
I’ve liked every previous word you’ve come up with but for some reason I just don’t like this one. It just isn’t aesthetically pleasing to me and makes me feel tilted which is pretty funny.
I like it. I like the reason for it. I will use it at the table to keep myself reminded about focus. I have found that your words have a power of reference for me, they sure help me, so I like it.
Thinking about (and agreeing with) what Spike said, if I were your editor, I’d make the following few points (take them or leave them):
If you’re defining a word that principally names an activity, it’s really out of order to define the noun (or gerund) first, and then refer the verb (or participle) to the meaning of the noun. Instead, first define the verb (med), and the other forms (medding, medded, etc.) will follow according to the norms of grammar.
Also, your “definition” is really just a list of a bunch of activities that fall under the general kind of activity that you’ve named “medding”. Let’s try to define the word, which requires that we come up with some single account or description that is common to all of those activities. If there is no such single account, then there can not be one single word that names all of those things. But since you say that your vocabulary lacks this word, you must already have in mind such a single account.
So, you might define “med” as: “to pay attention, in an intentional way, to each of your activities, whether bodily or mental.” Tight and tidy, precise and meaningful, and a true definition, not just a list.
To Jesse, Spike, BK, Eakel, and Belloc,
Thank you very much for all the input! Extremely helpful!
To Koby,
It’s going to be about poker pain, and how to make it stop.
Tommy
Hi, Belloc,
Those are quite useful points for refining the idea! I agree, it’s ideal to define a word by describing its attributes rather than listing the set it encompasses.
As for “out of order”, though — sure, that would be a good order to explain the concepts clearly once we’ve polished them. When still creating and feeling our way to a new concept, we start wherever we can and then test and refine from there.
If Tommy waited until he had this perfect
1. It might never reach the public at all
2. You’d be denied your chance to contribute!
Anyone who offers Tommy good feedback is one of his editors. Thanks for your contributions!
Best wishes,
Anna
Thanks for the blog, but it didn’t help me with my reading. I’ve a sentence where man is saying a lady”meddling the old cat”.Because she has done something unknowingly bad to him, and he is mad.
So, what shall I make of it?
It doesn’t make sense to me.
Reminds me of the game Everquest back in the early 2000′s used the term medding short for meditating to regain mana faster. Totally knew your definition before I even read it.
Great blog however Im loving reading it, having just discovered it.