There's plenty of time until there isn't
Content Warning: Suicide
Today, I got to go walking. Alone. With my headphones. The crunch of the rocks beneath my feet felt good. The bite of the cold air on my skin reminded me I'm alive. Those minor discomforts let me know I'm alive. My life is fairly comfortable these days, and manufacturing discomfort is a reminder of past challenges and a method to practice appreciation.
I'd thought I would listen to a podcast while on this walk, but it seemed to narrow my focus. It blocked thoughts and stifled the freedom of ideas that comes with time in nature.
There is so much content now. So much to consume and there is pressure to consume it.
- Have you seen...?
- Did you watch...?
- Have you read...?
- Do you listen to...?
It's overwhelming.
There is limited time to live and unlimited volumes of content to fill it with. How do you know what is worth your investment? It is interesting that I contemplate this now, at forty years old, because I was asked this same question over a decade ago.
For a time, I had a troubled teen renting a room in my shed. He was the son of my ex-girlfriend's friend. The lad stopped going to school, punched out his step-dad (I'd say justifiably), and exhausted his mum. The condition for him to live with us was he worked or studied. He did neither. He played video games, watched DVDs, and ate oven baked chicken nuggets. I can understand it, if I'm honest. The people that looked out for him had given up, right when he needed it most. We tried with him, tried really hard, but there were ideals and principles installed in him that would take more than just our influence.
I was talking to him in our kitchen one afternoon while he heated another plate of nuggets and chips. The two of us leaning against the kitchen counter talking about movies. He said he wanted to watch mafia films because some friend of his had said they were cool. I'd gotten the six DVDs I had and put them into a watch order. "Start with Goodfellas," I told him.
He looked at the stack, eyebrow slightly raised, and said, "Yeah, I dunno, think it's worth it?"
As a young and spritely twenty-eight-year-old, I was shocked. "Yes, yes, they are worth it." I knew they were. They are some of the greatest films ever made.
But that lad knew how precious time was.
Making a choice with our time is a luxury. There are twenty-four hours in a day and if you are lucky enough to choose what to do with them, don't squander them.
creative slumps
After three weeks of job applications (sleepless nights with children), my interest in writing was at a low point. Usually, reading books and watching movies will rejuvenate that interest. Fill the cup, so to speak. But it hadn't, not much, at least. I had ideas, brief glimmers of possibilities that seemed appealing, but nothing pushed me to pick up a pen.
I now felt burdened with content options, and I wasn't writing anything. Feeling inundated with information and untethered from creative expression. And that productivity culture clearly had me wrapped up. Can't walk without a podcast, can't sit without a book or movie or phone.
I was fifty steps into this walk and I felt oppressed.
My mind needs space. Everyone's mind needs space. I think we, as a people, are so overloaded with information that we don't know how to think properly. Crocs, most modern rap (Doechii fire, though), the President Elect, and the apparent remake of the Indiana Jones franchise are a good examples of this.
I dropped the podcast and played Hans Zimmer's original soundtrack for Interstellar.
It's an incredible piece of audio storytelling. It is a quality mixture of ambience and a robust musical soundscape. It swings from ethereal backdrops to melodic orchestral power pieces. It's quite gentle with those swings too. Some music quiets the mind and gives it room to move.
An excellent theme for walking and thinking. Walking and thinking.
There are many papers and research on the benefits of walking and physical exercise on the mind and creativity. There are some good ones.
But it is the thinking I am most interested in today. Our attention is one of our most valuable resources now. And we give it up freely to watch the morning routines of nitwits, the workouts of the emotionally unstable, and to make ourselves feel bad by comparing our normal lives to the curated displays of strangers. Creativity and thinking are rebellious acts in a world where our attention is a wholesale resource being bought by tech companies.
Give your mind space to think. Turn off the content and let your thoughts flow freely. Arnold Bennett wrote about this in How to Live on 24 Hours a Day over one hundred years ago and rings eerily true today.
And without the power to concentrate—that is to say, without the power to dictate to the brain its task and to ensure obedience—true life is impossible. Mind control is the first element of a full existence.
Thinking is the revolution.
there's plenty of time and there isn't
The Lad died about 6 years ago. He took his own life. He had to move out of our house when his behaviour became too erratic and violent and it was no longer safe for the children that lived there. I don't know exactly what happen to him after he moved out because not long after; I broke up with my girlfriend and my life took a completely different turn.
He will stay in my memory forever. His question, "Think it's worth it?" comes back to me again and again. Maybe he knew his time was short, but I don't think so. I think he knew the importance of our attention. Sure, his attention was given to video games and awful movies, but he was just a kid. That's exactly how he was supposed to spend that time. He was not supposed to spend it worrying if his parents loved him or if he'd have a roof over his head.
You get twenty-four hours a day, every day, until you don't.