A Simple Act Needed in a Shallow World

Something I struggle with lately is the ability to be silent. The act of being quiet not only in my actions but also in my mind and my surroundings. The constant need and habit of being entertained and occupied has become the autopilot for many of us, myself included.

I know I’m beating a dead horse here, but I’ve made the conclusion to work on this. It’s so easy to run on our default impulses and reach for that smartphone when we’re bored. Staring at yet another screen whether it’s our phone, tablet, TV, or laptop, has become the engrained norm.

I’m bringing this up because I find myself with increasingly tired and blurred vision at the end of the day. Also, I’ve been getting this indescribable “ick” if I’ve had too much screen time. The need for change, in other words, is knocking at the door.

I consider myself lucky to have grown up at a time before smartphones and the internet. I know what it tastes like to sit with myself, use my imagination, and unplug. But I feel as if those traits are being threatened, atrophied under the radar. It feels like a spy has entered my fortress and is slowly diluting the good within. All the while I’m drinking the Kool-Aid served up by tech.

Don’t get me wrong, I like tech. But I like useful tech, not the latest gadget for novelty’s sake. I sometimes just need to step back and reevaluate things.

Silence speaks

This is where I fumble the ball. Author and professor Cal Newport is a proponent of digital minimalism. He advises us to evaluate our relationship with tech and see where we’re wasting time, fragmenting our attention, and sabotaging our productivity.

It may seem like an easy process. One would just need to treat our tech habits like cleaning out our closets. Get rid of the useless and unwanted. Simple. But Newport warns against this oversimplification. He stresses that we must fill the newly freed time with productive and deeper pursuits such as reading, a new hobby, or social engagement, for example.

One that is often passed over is the act of silence. The process of sitting with your thoughts, letting your imagination take over, and allowing creativity to flourish. It may seem counterintuitive as it is commonly believed that we must busy ourselves in order to come up with great ideas. We have to brainstorm, design a matrix, or make lists for our brains to unlock its potential.

I’ve tried these practices. I’ve done the footwork, the organizing, and the note-taking and yes there are many pros and advantages to these tactics, but I believe they all can only go so far. Additionally, you run the risk of putting on blinders, restricting your vision, and becoming too analytical.

Quiet calms

What’s missing is the calm. Quieting down the mind, giving it room to breathe and expand, and feeling more at peace. We don’t need another app to tell us what to do or how to feel. We don’t need another self-help book to teach us a special technique requiring complex steps. Our minds are wrapped and wound up too tight to let anything in, to begin with.

We need more quiet. A quiet environment leads to a quiet mind which leads to our minds loosening and decompressing. That will allow new ideas, better problem-solving, and stress relief. Our minds can truly rest instead of being subjected to mindless entertainment falsely masked as relaxation.

Listen to you

The quiet will be a time to listen to you. To listen to your inner voice without the noise of social media, the latest trendy video, or the constant deluge of messages. Instead of listening to the bombardment of outside influence, you’ll finally hear your inner desires, true wants, and vulnerabilities. You’ll start to connect with your soul deep within instead of superficial, shallow, trivial dopamine hits.

Is it time to use our time more wisely? Is it time to finally reduce our intake of time-filled fluff and get back to being human?

I know I need to. I’m just as guilty of all of this as anyone else. I need more quiet to relax my mind. Whether it’s a walk, taking in my surroundings, or just reading a physical book in silence, I need to make more room for these practices.

Let’s start being kind to and take better care of ourselves. Maybe we’ll become better humans and learn a new thing or two about each other along the way.

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