moments of silence
It was around 10 o clock. I was hungry - about to cook dinner. But for the next 15 minutes, I was stalled by one thing. It wasn't a phone call, it wasn't a neighbor, it wasn't a pressing task, nor nature's call. It was me. I was looking through my music folder, searching for a few good tracks to play. Couldn't decide on anything. Then I turned on the TV app on my PC - nothing interesting was on. I went through my movie folder, but didn't feel like watching any movie.
So for 15 minutes, I was scrambling around trying to find sounds that I could hear while cooking. As time went by, I was getting more and more bothered for not finding anything. Then I wondered -
why do I need sounds really?
How much time in a day do i spend in quiet by myself?
I live alone and yet I am never quite alone. I am either reading something, talking to someone, watching some video or listening to music. Days on end I spend, consuming media - incessantly.
I realized something else too. I am pausing for shorter time. For example, while reading the recent Kundera novel, after I read something particularly illuminating, I didn't pause for long enough time to reflect on it. I was in a hurry to move on. Yet another example - sometimes while listening to songs, I interrupt the song at the fag end, and start another song. Its almost as if I am terrified of pauses, of disruption in my media consumption.
There are too many inspirations and insights that I am taking in, but none that I am acting on. ted talks, insightful articles, literature, talk/events with intelligent people.. all of these things are not adding up to anything concrete. not right now anyways. I am accumulating wisdom, without acting on any or contributing any.
We really need one idea in life to run with. and it occurs to me, we really need it to be an only one idea. With too many ideas, we end up doing nothing.
So, no chasing any more ideas. Only listening to self to see which idea i can run with.
What i should observe is not anymore media, but silence.
I will try to see, how much time do I spend in silence every day.
Would this experiment interest you? Tell me too, how much time in a day do you spend in complete silence? (Not consuming media, not doing anything engaging, being alone.)
So for 15 minutes, I was scrambling around trying to find sounds that I could hear while cooking. As time went by, I was getting more and more bothered for not finding anything. Then I wondered -
why do I need sounds really?
How much time in a day do i spend in quiet by myself?
I live alone and yet I am never quite alone. I am either reading something, talking to someone, watching some video or listening to music. Days on end I spend, consuming media - incessantly.
I realized something else too. I am pausing for shorter time. For example, while reading the recent Kundera novel, after I read something particularly illuminating, I didn't pause for long enough time to reflect on it. I was in a hurry to move on. Yet another example - sometimes while listening to songs, I interrupt the song at the fag end, and start another song. Its almost as if I am terrified of pauses, of disruption in my media consumption.
There are too many inspirations and insights that I am taking in, but none that I am acting on. ted talks, insightful articles, literature, talk/events with intelligent people.. all of these things are not adding up to anything concrete. not right now anyways. I am accumulating wisdom, without acting on any or contributing any.
We really need one idea in life to run with. and it occurs to me, we really need it to be an only one idea. With too many ideas, we end up doing nothing.
So, no chasing any more ideas. Only listening to self to see which idea i can run with.
What i should observe is not anymore media, but silence.
I will try to see, how much time do I spend in silence every day.
Would this experiment interest you? Tell me too, how much time in a day do you spend in complete silence? (Not consuming media, not doing anything engaging, being alone.)
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