kanata
Whenever I imagine a place where I am at peace, I imagine a place far away. Usually, some place surrounded by greenery, but not the kind of green where I grew up. A kind that's distant, somewhere in Asia. A rice farm in the spring rain, or somewhere deep in the forest.
I wondered why the nature here doesn't feel the same. And to an extent, maybe its the proximity to the city. To the busyness of my regular life. It feels different knowing exactly how you got somewhere and how long it took by car, compared to imagining a place in the middle of nowhere.
But there is another part to it, which is that the feeling of peace is not tied to the location, but rather it is a state of mind. Which would mean that it can be cultivated regardless of the place.
And yet, there is something so inviting about being deep in the woods, unfettered. I imagine that is the way that the first humans must have felt. Although for them, it must have been normal.
Short of moving away, I wonder how I can acheive that same peace within my current surroundings. I certainly haven't done everything I can to acheive it.
Perhaps I should begin to investigate how I might implement it in my current life.
It may be true that in modern life many of us have come to neglect the importance of our bodily sensations, and what they can inform us of our true condition in life.
We feel a dull pain in the back of the head, and we pop some Ibuprofen. We feel sluggish in the morning, and we drown that feeling in coffee. We feel bored, restless, and decide to watch that new exciting Netflix show. Like modern medicine, we are too focused on treating the symptoms, and not the causes.
There is a reason for every feeling, every sensation we experience. It is not just something that needs to be dealt with; it's a signal we must understand.
And this goes beyond our physical health.
It has been said that we have developed better and more engaging ways to deal with boredom, yet we've simultaneously become less tolerant of it. We cannot for a moment be separated from stimulation. We must take our phones everywhere, even opting to scroll mindlessly than to be lost in our thoughts.
That is why when we lie there in bed, awaiting sleep, all of those thoughts in our subconscious come out with a thirst for vengeance. We have neglected too many signals that our minds and bodies are continually sending us.
I have found that sitting in boredom, or engaging in low-stimulation activities, has the effect of building up the potential of the next stimulating experience.
Consider this: When smart devices were first released, such as the iPad, it was revolutionary in entertainment. Many of us were amazed and entertained for hours on end by games like Cut the Rope and Plants vs. Zombies. It was a form of stimulation we had never conceived of.
Now, unlocking our phones hardly has the same effect. We go through the same, lifeless rituals of checking our feeds, playing youtube videos in the background while we eat breakfast or brush our teeth. Mobile games are not that fun, in fact, scarcely anything is really that fun.
But why? Entertainment has only gotten better at entertaining, but all we can do is barely stave off boredom with a constant stream of meaningless activity.
What we need is boredom. Our mind is designed in an incredible way. When we get too much of a stimulus, it is no longer stimulating. We get bored. And it's in that bored state when we have our best ideas, when we reflect and develop new goals and motivation.
If we never got bored, we would not be able to stop. A drug with no tolerance build-up would be the worst drug known to man. Thankfully, this is simply not possible.
Boredom is the voice we have inside of all of us, pushing us towards asking the most difficult questions, re-examining our most closely-held beliefs.