I have watched a lot of series. Some good ones, some bad ones and many mediocre. This week, I watched the season opener of Game of Thrones. It is the first episode of anything I have watched in a couple of months. All in all, in the last 5-6 months, I have watched maybe 3 or 4 episodes of shows in total.
When my daughter was born last August, she required constant care throughout the night every hour or so. Since I work, I got into the habit of doing the first few feedings and changes so my wife could sleep longer. I would generally stay up until around two or three and be up again at seven.
To 'kill' the time, I would watch series with the sound down and subtitles (our apartment is small). I watched many, and spent countless hours sitting in front of the TV consuming, consuming, consuming. The time my wife and I spent together was also generally in front of the TV too.
Could I have done something more productive? Absolutely. But, as you can imagine with so little sleep and a newborn requiring a lot of care, self-development was not at the forefront of my mind at the time.
In January, I found out about Steemit through a friend. Within a few weeks, my TV time had been crushed down probably 75 percent as it was replaced by writing articles and content for the platform.
I was brought into Steemit for money reasons, to ease the pressure that a special formula for our child was putting on us. Even though I am still yet to take any money from this, it did ease the pressure significantly.
At the time, as we watched our little bit of savings dwindle to zero and credit card debt rise, I had felt that we were getting pushed hard against a wall with no sign of release.
Steemit was the sign and the release. For me, it was a rediscovery of writing and it hinted at a possible future where I could supplement our income a little and remove a little of the burden. That sight of being able to move away from the wall was enough to bring me hard into the moment.
Rather than dwelling in the past of what was and the struggles we had and were likely to face, it snapped my attention to what could be done in the moment.
A lot I found.
Even though I do not usually write directly about all of the things that I experience and face day to day, writing what I do allows me space to think and process a lot of information. It synthesizes thoughts and considers emotional positions and how best to face and deal with what arrives at the door.
A problem is only such when there is no solution to be found. Under pressure, the mind does not function well and is less likely to find suitable resolutions to what it faces. Because of the fear of being without solution, a common step is to withdraw from the problems and find solace in entertaining the mind.
This is what I was doing with TV. Withdrawing. For the hours that I watched, I was not weighed down by the thoughts of the adversity we were facing. I was self-medicating.
I have lived with a chronic illness for a long time but I do not take painkillers when I physically suffer unless it is extremely bad. I understand those that do. I do not remember what it feels like to wake up painless and sit or move without discomfort in a hundred different points of my body.
I don't medicate it away as it tells me vital data, it warns me of what may be approaching or that I have over or under done something in the past. It is very intelligent and I learned when I was quite young to listen to my body.
The mind is the same yet, I was medicating the signals that were asking me to pay attention. I was dulling my mind at a time where it needed to be sharp and attentive in order to interact well with my reality.
Writing for Steemit brought me back to that reality, and what I write forces my mind to think in ways it doesn't always want to. It digs deep into symptomatic psychological pains to investigate and discover what is the cause, and then works through to care for and heal it.
Perhaps others use their writing in this way too, I don't know. But it is a meditative process that observes, reflects, conditions and restores a vigour of mind that I felt had been lost to me for quite a while.
The most important aspect of this is of course not the time spent writing, it is the time spent in the walking world. For the benefits are not contained within the keyboard and screen, they are carried with and pervade each thought, word and action made. Each is a movement process that influences the others and the clearer the signals, the less conflict is met.
It is from this point that practical solutions are more likely to be discovered and it is also from here that the physical shifts can be made to apply solution to problem.
It doesn't feel good much of the time to go through this process constantly but it is necessary for me to clarify my thoughts and give clearer direction to my actions. I think that everyone can benefit from this but the draw of the various medications is strong.
We live with a pill in our pocket that will ease the pains of our minds by taking our mind off the pains. It becomes a habit that in time will lead to breakages both mental and physical. The instances of burnout are climbing because fewer are creating the space to clear their minds of clutter. Rather, they are just turning their direction and looking at something pleasurable instead.
I did this too. This is part of the reason I write some of my posts. I take my self back there and and recapture the numbing effect it had on me, and compare it to my mind now. I try to present things in different ways for those here to consider in themselves too.
You need not read it, listen to it or act upon it, but I would be doing a disservice to myself and the community if I don't present the things that have helped me develop myself.
I am also not saying that there is no space to be entertained. Sometimes, When I present my views of work or criticism of the many forms of entertainment in our world, people take my views to an uncharitable extreme. There is space for consumptive entertainment, but in my opinion, that shouldn't be where the majority of time gets spent.
There are many reasons we as an individual may want to withdraw and forget for a time but that time is time lost if it is not because we want to do it, but because we want to avoid pain. The pains are in many forms of course and I cannot speak for all, but I do know from my personal, real-world experiences with people and myself, there is a lot of avoidance happening.
The nature of avoidance means that it pushes attention to something else. And without the attention paid to where it is required, it cannot see that it is actually avoiding something. Mental systems that camouflage themselves as something else are very difficult to grasp as it is the mind hiding parts of the mind from itself.
Again, I am not forcing this view upon anybody and I highly recommend investing the time to discover if this is somehow or somewhat applicable to you. At least spend some time reflecting upon the things you do, where time goes and the reasons for it. Check whether where you are is where you want to be and if what you are doing is leading to where you want to go.
I don't want to change you but, why don't you want to change you?
Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]
