I don’t know what this post will be, a trip report?
For background, maybe a month ago I found myself spending too much time on the unproductive side of the web, the feeds and algorithms have a way of creeping up on you, taking over your whole existence, and so again set up my system of task-specific user accounts and PWA:s to add friction between work, social media, and other tasks.
I’ve written about this before, and the latest iteration is a lot more streamlined, just uses fiddling with application launchers to accomplish the goal, which is to make it more cumbersome to switch between working and checking social media websites, and overall making the computer a more boring place.
This whiplash from mainlining 2020s algorithm slop to staring at a blank wallpaper usually results in crashing waves of increasingly overwhelming boredom, an experience that goes from novel and exotic to deeply unpleasant over the course of a couple of days.
In the period immediately after this you may compulsively attempt to open tabs, only to realize you can’t. This habit goes away rather quickly.
You discover that you can stave off the boredom by doing chores.
Eventually after every clogged sink is fixed, every piece of laundry is folded, and every surface is squeaky clean, now what are you going to do?
There is still so much time.
The stillness and quiet is deafening.
As far as come-downs go, there’s no craving, you aren’t bargaining with yourself for one more hit like you do when quitting nicotine, it’s more a sense of your entire existence being in complete disarray, expecting an endless deluge of stuff that isn’t coming anymore.
I was in this state for a while. The boredom mostly subsided, but I was still really wired, quick to anger and frustration, mind was racing, looking for faults in the world to be upset at, arguing positions against people who weren’t there to argue back. Probably even more so than normal I was half else where, no matter what I was doing.
Then some week ago I decided to slow down, I’m not fully sure what came over me to make me do such a thing, but it is what I did.
I went from pressing against the very fabric of my being to make things go faster, to letting things unfold as they would in their own pace.
In a heartbeat everything came into soft focus, raging storm of thoughts quieted down, I found myself exactly where I was, not through effort but its opposite, simultaneously vividly aware of my body and surroundings.
Ultimately, poetry makes a mockery of the brute experience, some things can only be lived.
Having found this stillness, it has been quite easy to return to, and I have lingered as much as I have been able.
I normally don’t remember dreaming, but this last week I’ve had these incredibly vivid dreams. It’s quite similar to the dreams I had when I quit caffeine.
With a canvas so blank anything painted on it is immediately obvious, it’s been fascinating to watch my own reactions to impressions and events. The roman stoics talked about finding a space between impression and judgement, and deciding whether to act upon it. I think I understand what they meant by that.