Poverty in 17th century France was pretty much universal. Even if you were lucky enough to work in the city, you would be without property or possessions, and you would be completely beholden to your employers who paid you barely enough to survive. Yet still, even in those dire times, French philosopher/writer/scientist Blaise Pascal realised that all of humanity’s problems came from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
What is it that we are so afraid of? A study from the University of Virginia found that most people didn’t enjoy their own thoughts; it also found that they would rather read a book or surf the web than think freely for a short while, and that if those options weren’t available, they would rather receive mild electric shocks than be left alone with their thoughts for five minutes. The study’s conclusion was that the absence of cognitive intentionality provided too much freedom, resulting in participants feeling like they weren’t in control because they had no direction.
An example of where I experienced this first hand was meditation. I used to meditate in order to help calm my mind, but I found it almost impossible to relax. I was thinking so much about the act of mediating that it counterintuitively became an anxiety inducing activity. Every time a thought came along, I would push it away like a fly buzzing around my face, and I would also feel guilty for letting my mind stray. After a while I learned to be forgiving of the thoughts as they passed me by, but I knew deep down that I would not reach nirvana. It was not within me to become an empty vessel but more importantly, that wasn’t what I actually wanted. I was seeking peace, and peace wasn’t emptiness for me, it was something else.
What I did instead was release the burden from my shoulders and pour the thoughts out of my mind onto the pages of my journals (I have two now) and blog so that they couldn’t drown me. Once I was able to float on the water, I was in a better position to start swimming. It wasn’t about getting out of the water as much as it was learning how to stay afloat. To get to that point, I had to confront myself; I had to sit quietly in a room alone, though not completely without direction.
Over many, many months of trying to objectively look at my life, I learned some really valuable lessons; supported by loads of podcasts, essays, and books. Essentially, it is the fear of abandonment and rejection that underpins every issue I face. The anxiety or depression isn’t my problem, that’s merely a response to the actual problem. There’s no sense in fixing the symptoms without addressing the root so my focus shifted entirely from putting out fires to searching for the source.
Figuring that out changed everything for me but as far as I have come, I do still worry about the same things that have always weighed me down. I am waiting for a message that says I don’t love you, from someone that I love. I am expecting to be left out of things or be uninvited. The voice in the back of my head persists, telling me I am worthless (in a much quieter voice nowadays though). My defence used to be that I would stop caring, but now I know that stoic defiance isn’t a solution. It is a band-aid for a broken leg – a wildly inappropriate response to serious damage. I’ve chosen to care a lot, and to be open and unashamed about it. There’s no doubt it’s tough, but being a bit vulnerable has allowed me to get close to people and it has exposed me to situations that I would never have gotten close to experiencing before. The next step is to slowly push my boundaries and build up my confidence in myself.
There are occasional sleepless nights, bad dreams, moments of the aforementioned anxiety or depression, but they do not dominate my life nor control my narrative. I allow myself to feel them and accept that they will pass, and guess what happens each time? They pass! Feelings of inadequacy are temporary whereas the positivity that I try to live every day with persists. I have learned to become less dependant and attached, but I have in no way lost my ability to feel love. In all my recent relationships and friendships, the old behaviours and patterns I used to get into have been absent and in their place is something new, and better. I have taken the reins and thus taken control of my life.
Pascal noted that when we face our mortal condition, we get miserable, and that’s why we seek distractions. I do often seek distractions, that’s likely why I’m writing this post, but what I don’t do is shy away from my condition. My time, like everyone else’s, is finite on this planet and I do not believe we get another go at it. I’m going to spend my time understanding myself and the world around me, I’ll never stop learning, and at the end I hope I can part as a happy person.