A break from the noise

Before we begin, I need to say a big – SORRY! to everyone for unsubscribing to your Substack. In my haste to disable all notifications in the settings, I fucked something up (I still don’t know what I did), which meant when I turned everything back on, I realised I’d unsubscribed from all my Substack friends. My bad! If I haven’t already, I will be re-subscribing to you shortly. 

---

Photo by MANH LAI VAN

---

A few years ago, I went with a friend to a Buddhist monastery in the outskirts of Perth. My friend had been there before, and so, she filled me in on what to expect. We were to bring a dish of food to share with all the other visitors and the monks, line up and greet the monks, partake in the pray/meditation session, and then have lunch together. None of which I remember very well, (except for the banquet of food, which was delicious). What I do remember, however, was meeting the head monk.

As my friend and I approached this monk, who was sitting in the lotus position playing with his toes, my friend asked him, “how do I quieten my mind when its racing?”

As if he was in some cheesy martial arts movie, the monk picked up the tea sitting in front of him all slow and Zen-like, took a sip, and then placed it back on the floor in front of my friend before saying:

“See how the ripples of the tea settle themselves when left alone?”

“Yes” my friend said, now staring deep into the teacup.

“Your mind is the same, just leave it alone and it will settle itself.” 

And with that, he smiled before gesturing to the next group of people to approach.

Now, I’ll be honest with you, when I first heard that monk’s response, I thought it was the biggest load of cliché bullshit. I couldn’t help but think, how!? How do we leave our minds alone, so they’ll settle themselves? My analytical way of thinking just didn’t get it.

But. . .

The recent break I had from all the noise of the internet seemed to help me better understand what that monk was talking about.

Let’s start with some context. Roughly a month ago I decided to take a break from:

Substack – as I felt I was spending far too much time on it.

YouTube – as I felt not only was I spending too much time on it, but that the majority of what I was watching, was, to put it bluntly, garbage.

Podcasts – as I felt that every time I had some menial task to complete – whether it be commuting, cooking, working-out, doing the dishes, brushing my teeth, or even having a shit – my default reaction was to turn on a podcast and zone out.

Social Media – do I really have to give a reason why…

And, more generally, I just wanted to stay off my phone as much as someone living in the 21^st century reasonably can without moving to a monastery.

The other reason I decided to take a break from these things was because, as someone who has struggled with addiction, I wanted to try get a handle on what seemed to be a mounting phone addiction. And as it turned out, my behaviour on the first few days of my break showed me that there was definitely an addictive aspect to this whole thing.

Days 1-4:

The most obvious thing I noticed over the first few days was just how many times I habitually opened my phone, only to hit the home screen and remember I’d removed all the apps and turned off all notifications. I must’ve checked my phone at least twenty times a day over those first few days – each time putting it down somewhat dissatisfied that there was nothing there to grab my attention. With all this extra time not filled by the consumption of content I was also able to notice just how much time my mind spent racing through plans for ‘potential posts’. I must have gone through writing this very idea in my head at least 50 times – which I found somewhat disturbing. After all, here I was trying to take a break from the ever-churning creation and consumption of content and all my mind could think about was using this break to make more of it. I also felt this urge to use this break ‘productively’ and go over my routine so that I could ‘optimise my time’ moving forward – it was all very disgusting. Then, there were the struggles I had with my menial tasks. I didn’t want to do my workout, cook my dinner, brush my teeth, or commute to work (although I never want to do that) in silence. I mean, what was I supposed to do – just be with my thoughts? Just exist in the present moment giving attention to the task at hand? Holy hell was that boring!

But in all seriousness, I have no problem operating in silence, in fact, I enjoy it. Which is why I found it disconcerting that I felt this overwhelming urge to fill these menial tasks with noise. I feel this is a symptom of the ever-increasing entanglement many of us have with our phones in that even when our attention is best placed elsewhere, we still feel compelled to give some of our attention to those cacophonous little rectangles.      

Days 5-9:

After three or four days of grabbing at my phone for no reason whatsoever – I started catching myself in the act. I’d walk over to my phone, pick it up, and then before opening it I’d remember that there wasn’t going to be anything on there. So, I’d put it down without opening it and walk away feeling lost. The more this happened the sillier I felt, until eventually – on day 5 or 6 – I just stopped reaching for it.

That’s when everything seemed to slow down.

My thoughts stopped racing through ideas about ‘potential posts’. My urge to keep up with all the content I’d normally consume on Substack or YouTube dissipated. And my desire to ensure I used my break ‘productively’ started to disappear. It felt like I dropped this weight I didn’t even know I was carrying around. Like the low-level anxiety that was just always in the background urging me to ‘get things done’ had gone on vacation. And so, I went slower. I took my time playing with the pieces I was writing as I no longer felt the self-imposed pressure to make sure I had something ready to post every fortnight. I spent time writing some things I don’t intend to share, because once again, I didn’t have to adhere to some posting schedule. I also let myself meander through my down time. I went for longer walks. I sat in the park and watched the birds. I meditated without setting a timer. Hell, I even started having shits without bringing my phone. It was wild.     

Day 10 onwards:

I started settling into this new, slower, way of being. I was still thinking a lot, but I noticed how my thoughts took on a new shape. There was a lightness to the thoughts, as if they weren’t weighed down by the notion of, ‘I could write about this’. Instead, I was just playing with ideas like I used to when I was younger. And because none of my mental energy was spent thinking about all the noise contained within the content I’d normally consume; I felt like my mind had more space to usher in new thoughts and ideas. It also seemed, at times, like there was more space between my thoughts.  

It was all very nice. . .

But I don’t want to give the wrong impression. It’s not like I went through some fundamental transformation just because I wasn’t using my phone. Things still pissed me off. Work was still taxing. My girlfriend – bless her adorable soul – still annoyed me at times. And when I slammed on my skateboard the concrete was still as hard as ever. There was also the inevitable problem that my little break created: I had to come back to all the noise of the internet at some point. Which meant I started thinking about how to do so, without falling into the same old traps and without losing all the benefits this break had engendered.

Coming Back & Moving Forward:

One of the unexpected things I noticed about coming back had to do with podcasts. When I was doing my menial tasks in silence there were times – thanks, in large part to the meditation I’ve been doing – when I would catch myself thinking and return my focus to the present moment. But when I started listening to podcasts again, this did not happen. Instead, I’d get so engrossed in the podcast that I’d completely close the door on being aware of the moment. And to me this feels like an issue. It seems like I’m pulling myself away from the present moment and not even leaving open the opportunity to pull myself back. Which is why, moving forward, I plan to ensure that each day I complete some of my menial tasks in silence. 

I also noticed how quickly I wanted to fall back into old habits. And how, if I wanted to save myself from reverting to old ways, I needed to maintain a level of awareness when I used these platforms so that I can engage with them consciously and not habitually. That is actually the biggest thing I want to change moving forward: I want to consciously choose when to invite in the noise of the internet and when to block it out; instead, of my internet consumption being this unconscious habit that I have no real control over. I want to do this not only so I can stay on top of my phone addiction, but also, so I can continue – at least to some degree – to stay connected to that slower way of thinking and being.

Making sense of that Monk:

This break showed me that my mind is more malleable than I thought. If I change the way I behave and I change the number of inputs I feed it, then it responds to those changes by slowing down or speeding up. In other words, my mind gets used to whatever I do in a way that determines the RPMs it sits at. It was this realisation that helped me better understand what that monk was talking about that day. As it seems to me that one way to, “let your mind settle itself” is to stop overloading it with noise.

---