To Do Nothing
shilin.ca
shilin.ca
I think the real value of this post is that it's almost like discovering from first principles. Building up the knowledge bit by bit.
Thankfully it also provides a reference that can get past initial barriers and apprehension.. "meditation? Sounds too wooey" or "tried it, didn't work" are both I've heard often.
It could be the message that somebody needs.
Doing nothing is actually a kind of discipline. The brain isn’t designed for idle time; evolution didn’t prioritize contentment—it prioritized survival. So Becky never really shuts up, because quiet might’ve once meant danger. Today, it just means our ancient wiring is nudging us to be productive, even when there’s nothing to produce.
Fortunately, for more than 300 years, the Quakers have been showing us how this is done, and they inherit a long line of silent, social presence.
I was at a bathhouse the other night and these two people were both playing videos, out loud, on their phones while having a conversation. They couldn't even have a conversation without some distraction.
Nowadays everyone has an earbud in their ear playing a podcast, music, or audiobook. Every task has to be accompanied by audio. People avoid social interaction by listening to something. Etc etc.
There are huge benefits to doing chores in silence or being outside without segregating your sense of sound.
It's up there with social media.
I'd be really curious if any mental health professionals have studied people with anxiety conditions and how much audio they listen to throughout the day.
It was either Radiolab or this American life that aired an episode about how the Sony walkman changed society forever. I think they were really onto something.
All western man's "problems" to me seem to be the want of utopian trade offs that we get all the upside of a trade off without trading anything and then complaining when that doesn't happen in reality.
In reality, what was good enough yesterday, is expected today and not good enough tomorrow. Exactly the chemical reaction that causes progress.
-- Yoga Vasistha (Chapter: The Story of Gadhi) translated by Swami Venkatesananda. You can get it from https://archive.org/details/swami-venkatesananda-vasisthas-y...
Some more details on the above verse can be seen at this blog Power of Present Moment – Yoga Vasishta - https://krishnapriya22013.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/power-of-...
Blaise Pascal, Pensées
To the people here saying this is just meditation: the problem is that meditation is a solution to a problem most people don’t know they have.
I like this author’s post because of the Becky metaphor. The Untethered Soul goes into detail as to what happens if you keep paying attention to the voice inside your head.
This problem focused approach is more likely to get people meditating than just telling them about the benefits of meditation.
Highlights how we prioritize distractions and loose track of ourselves. Healthy to take a pause and just look at the moment as it is without any stimuli.
Sitting in silence is vastly different than doing nothing productive.
What are you planning?
Who are you calling?