Parents talk about the importance of children being bored in this age of screens. Take away a screen and organised activities and let children get creative, the experts say. It works.
And what about adults? When was the last time you were really bored? Do we ever actually get bored? It’s certainly a lot easier to get bored at the moment: No far-away trips to plan, fewer social activities, fewer schemes to implement... Still, devices are only an arm’s length away. We can immediately distract ourselves from any need to turn inwards for any reason to search for what our next trip might be or just, you know, check the weather app (30% chance of rain tonight).
Relatedly: I just did an 11-day fast (technically 10.5 days, so I am rounding up, and technically not really a fast, as I had daily juices). Fasting has a long lineage across various religions, and has also been practised for a range of health reasons, though the evidence for it being beneficial is usually kind of sketchy (I did it in a bid to clear up post-viral aches and pains, with daily check-ins with a doctor).
Without wanting to glorify the practice, as it’s certainly not for everyone for a slew of reasons, giving up food felt like a real inward turning, a kind of (luxurious) renunciation of the trappings of the outside world. It was a severe dulling of the noise of the world, and relaxing too, partly I think due to not having to make a whole range of food-related choices every day. (Yes, we are so lucky to be born into the right place, at the right time, to the right economic class that these are our challenges: being well fed, being entertained, earning enough money to have choices—so many choices.)
When you are suddenly given all the time you would usually spend shopping, planning and preparing food, or going out to eat, you end up with a lot of time on your hands. You might even be bored! It hastens the ability, desire even, to turn attention inwards, to the mind—I can see why fasting has religious roots. It seems to instinctively prepare you for meditation, or to drive you towards it.
I have an on-again, off-again meditation practice. It’s such a simple thing to do, and yet so very, very challenging. All you have to do is be still—beyond easy. You need no equipment, you need no other people, you need no special training. I remember asking a Buddhist friend about books she could recommend to me when I wanted to get back into the practice. “Sam, I sense that you are seeking to avoid meditating by reading about meditating,” she wisely answered.
The physical practice of yoga, as you probably know, is chiefly to prepare the body to sit comfortably for meditation. It’s easier than meditating, though it really shouldn’t be, should it? I used to be one of the smart arses who would argue that yoga was my moving meditation, so I didn’t need to meditate, but that just missed the point entirely.
But here’s the thing. Doing the Bikram sequence class after class gets so damn boring that it similarly opens up a space to turn inwards. You can’t run from your thoughts when you don’t need to think about your poses as much because you know them so well. You create space/time in your mind the same way you create space/time in your mind when you give up food for a little while. Turns out, I think, that yoga may not just be about getting physically prepared to meditate; it is in its own way getting you mentally prepared for the real deal as well. Though you shouldn’t need it—did I mention how simple it is to meditate?
We seem to do so much unnecessary stuff, to stay so busy, to avoid the thoughts, the feelings… the emptiness? The void?
So, if you have kids, sure, take their devices away. Take your own away, as well. You don’t need to fast; you may not even need to do any yoga. You could just sit. Get bored. Observe your mind, and see where it takes you. Then sit some more.
Speaking of distractions… ;)
Watching
The Crown. Gone back to Season 1, had dropped it during Season 2. Great way to avoid meditating.
Reading
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste. A 2020 Booker shortlister (didn’t win). Only think better than reading synchronicity is reading/series bingeing synchronicity. Turns out this book group book, which I am not particularly enjoying yet, is just that little bit better as it’s initially set in 1930s Ethiopia, around the time Edward VIII abdicated, so there’s a bit of historical consistency between the two.
To varying degrees, there is an uncrossable chasm between you and everybody you care about.
There are two ways you can interpret this. One is the depressing route: to believe that your friends are not really your friends and that you don’t really know them. That you will never really know anybody at all. Or you can take the more optimistic route: it’s not that you know your friends less than you thought you did, it’s that you know strangers more. You don’t need to have an established relationship to help someone. Even transient moments have meaning.
The Unreality of Memory by Elisa Gabbert. I’ve only read the first essay but it’s a cracker—the kind of essay, my god, I wish I could write. NYT review here.
You can find more amazing images like this one below (the Tarantula Nebula) at Astronomy Picture of the Day. So wonderful that such vast images can be captured and then appear on something named so prosaically. Look at one before you meditate!
COVID-19 is like running a marathon with no finish line. What does sports science say about how we can win it? So many potential pull quotes from this one! But I’m going with:
It’s the mismatch between expectation and reality, more than the details of whatever reality you’re dealing with, that really stings.