Have you ever been alone with your thoughts?
When was the last time you sat alone with your thoughts? I just did and I struggled to get past the surface that is so inundated with everyday life, redundant conversations of work, some wily comeback never uttered, or worse, a rehearsal of how I was going to tell someone off.
It’s scary discovering this side of self. I, who claim to value solitude, I, who claim that the greatest insights come when you sit down and let the brain assimilate everything, I who preach allowing some space for your mind to breathe. The same I, not being able to get past the surface. Terrifying! It’s probably true what they say. All seems pedestrian until it happens to you.
I don’t mean to write a self-help article. I don’t know any solution to any of this. Neither am I a genius who has uncovered the secret of enlightenment, nor a scholar preaching cognitive behavioural axioms.
I am just wondering, or am I worrying, or am I just shifting my attention from thing to another, unable to reconcile the fact that I am myself in a continuum of endless thoughts. Not motivated by my own understanding, but from the ceaseless hammering of information I consume.
It seems sitting alone with my own thoughts is now a situation I’d rather avoid. I don’t know when this transition happened, when I crossed over to the other side, when I came across as an irritant to my own self.
I decided to pause reading this morning. To not consume anything, to not read and fiendishly devour every piece of information I come across. To not Google that one thing that caught my eye to validate it. To not watch that movie I thought I will this weekend. To not play the guitar mindlessly.
I have heard grandiose theories of cognitive overload, ill effects of social media, dopamine seeking behaviour. Strangely social media addiction nor phone addiction isn’t something I suffer with. Pray, why else is this bothering me, I wonder.
Standing alone in this sweltering heat, in the middle of a hill overlooking a vast field below, why is it that my mind is occupied with something so asinine
Have I lost the ability to think? Is this what is plaguing the whole world? This impulse to shout out a response, no matter its validity, this impulse to inflict harm on fellow human beings, no matter the innocence, this cycle of hatred renewed with vigour, time and again, time and again.
Why is this? I know all about the Alan Watts video, of Tolle’s exaltation of the present moment, of scripture, some Veda, and yet I am still lost looking for an answer. Have been for the longest time. Just been realising its futility. Which is the very antithesis of what I set out to do.
Much wisdom I seek though I am numb. My introspection I seek, despite the deluge of knowledge that I can’t comprehend. Lots of clarity I seek, although the sky has never been clearer.
Are you here now? Do you know anything? Pray tell.
