Life has gotten pretty wild these past few days, namely because my new iPhone came in the mail on Saturday. Didn't end up setting it up until Sunday night, but everything was going smoothly (and SO much faster than my old phone) until I realized one problem: my service wasn't working. The only time my phone was able to connect to anything was when I was on WiFi. That meant even in my business room (which happens to be the garage), I was getting no internet, not to mention a lack of music while I was driving.
That left me with silence.
And it was deafening.
Or should I say, my thoughts were. I was so painfully aware of the lack of distraction normally caused by a podcast or song that I was viscerally anxious, searching for any way to get my phone to work.
In the 21st century, our days are almost completely filled with things that try and grab our attention. Advertisements, movies, podcasts, music, the list goes on and on of creations that suck our senses away from our bodies. Many of the things we consume are designed to be either visually or auditorially stimulating; a product that sells silence would sit untouched on any shelf.
In my opinion, this is why it's so hard to be without these things. When all you have to listen to is the drum of the highway, what do you turn to? Your thoughts. And that's a scary place to find yourself. It's much easier to drown out the mental chatter with your favorite song than to face the music of the voice in your head. I know I succumbed to this; I ended up turning on the radio, which is how you know I'm desperate.
Our mind is the loudest place we'll ever know. Full of all of our joy, sadness, positivity, and fear, it's our greatest ally and our biggest foe. The sheer depth of it can make us leery to dive in. I know I definitely need to work on being okay with exploring the mind in the absence of noise. But this is the beauty of the opposite. In practicing absence, we also gain presence.
"A Single Seed" is my attempt to get out one idea every day that I've learned or accumulated over the years, with the hope that it may stick in someone else's memory bank as well. The idea may be related to fitness, business, life, or philosophy, but I think you'll find that many can change domains if you wish them to. With each seed planted, a new life awaits.
Image credit: https://www.pikrepo.com/fdfqy/black-2-din-car-stereo