How can you go deep if you go fast?
I woke up this morning and stared at the foggy scene outside the window. Was it the glass or was it the haze? My head was still heavy from a weird dream. I dreamt of an old friend that I had not met for nearly 15 years. He was staring into the blank space, sitting next to me in a cafe on a rainy day. He didn’t look happy, and I remembered in the dream, ah his father just passed. I am not here to interpret this dream, but his facial expression captivated me. “There is a part in me that feels this way too,” I thought to myself.
I got up from bed and decided to let this part show up. I went to brush my teeth, and took a real good look of my tongue in the mirror. I folded my blanket, letting my fingers feel the soft fabric. Instead of telling myself what to do next in my mind, I did nothing. I moved around slowly, aimlessly. I opened the windows, I did the laundry. I wrote a few lines on a fresh page in the journal. I made coffee. I made the breakfast I seemed to prefer today. Intuitive actions. No pre-planned thoughts. Honey on yogurt? No. Walnuts? Yes. Whole banana, half banana? Whole. Blueberries? Yes, three. No reason provided. Eating outdoor on the grass as usual? No, back to the desk, with the journal. I looked at the bowl as I started eating. “Beautiful, creamy yellow. Cool, dark purple, still cold from the fridge. Aha I munched on a sunflower seed! Dried coconut flakes wow,” my phone was within my reach but I didn’t feel any need to be entertained (a.k.a distracted) by a video, a song, or social media scrolling. I am here, in this moment. And then I am here, in this next moment. And then I am now here, the following moment.
As I continued this process, thoughts to rush me started to pop up.
“Hey, take a photo take a photo of your slow, intentional munching and post it, you haven’t been posting for a while. You know people like colourful, personal posts.”
“Hey make a post make a post about how to slow down. Make five points about the benefits of slowing down.”
“Hey you have a personal reading today to tend to. You also have to wrap up that project. What’s with all this slow thing now, did you forget that we are the most motivated in the morning?”
“Are you even awake, why are you staring back at me with the blank face?”
“Stop the journaling, move those content to an instagram post, you need some marketing skills. Open your instagram, open it now, see how other people do it.”
These thoughts were loud. The louder they were, the sadder I felt. I felt sad because these thoughts originated from the aspect that is being starved of recognition. It has a void that seems to be insatiable. We like to tell ourselves the lie that when we have more we will feel safer, but that never happens no matter how much more we get. Money, likes, followers, praises, views, I don’t know, there is always the next target waiting.
The aspect of me that resembles my friend in the dream is tired of this race, this urgency of needing evidences that prove “I am good enough”. This aspect knows that it is all a show, and since when did we sign up for it? If we want to fill this void, we have to look at it, eye to eye. We cannot search for more and more things in the outer world to fill it, it is futile. I want to be doing things because I want to do it. Not because I want things in return to fill my void.
Carl Jung said “who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes”. Introspection is such a hype word nowadays. It is an easy word to say. But I want to know who the fuck is actually doing it? I think if we actually introspect, we will not spend so much time watching other people living, and we will not be recording so much of our lives for other people’s entertainment either. I think.
