I can't sleep…
In this astonishing world, music itself raced through the morning stillness and, in a flash, was gone.
— Riku Onda, Honeybees and Distant Thunder (Translated by Philip Gabriel) (Pegasus Books, May 2, 2023)
DK photo at twilight this very chilly morning. See more pictures from this morning’s walk here.
We feel this restlessness; we lament our shrinking attention spans. But to focus on a relatively narrow question of technical measures of our attention span misses a deeper truth. The restlessness and unease of our times aren’t simply, in my experience, the vertigo of distraction and distractibility. No, that experience is itself a symptom caused by some deeper part of the unsettled self. The endless diversion offered to us in every instant we are within reach of our phones means we never have to do the difficult work of figuring out how to live with our own minds.
For many years I have, like an old man, taken a daily constitutional. I began in my early 20s, when I was a freelance writer, which meant working all day either at home or in coffee shops. I found it useful to go for a walk and clear my head. I’d go even on the bitterest days of a Chicago winter, when the wind slices at your face like a blade. I started doing this before the days of the smartphone and even before the days of podcasts on the iPod. During the walk I would just … think. I’d let my mind wander. Almost without exception, my best thinking happened on these walks. I would come back to my laptop, sometimes almost racing up the steps to my apartment, to get the thoughts down. […]
Daydreaming is a central experience of being alive and also a casualty of the attention age. Years ago, podcasts came to fill my ears during my walks, conditioning me to feel a little panicked without one. But as I’ve spent more time thinking about attention, I’ve begun to force myself to just walk and let myself be with my thoughts. I’ve also developed a set of routines, habits and hobbies that can provide the framework for a form of modified idleness, just enough to focus on to keep myself rooted and present while allowing my mind to wander. Chopping wood, making handmade pasta, going to the dog park with my canine-obsessed 6-year-old — these are all in the happy but endangered category of things to do that are neither work nor looking at my phone. […]
You can’t busy yourself out of boredom or amuse yourself out of it. Neither work nor constant entertainment provides a solution. Not for the king or for us. The problem we face is existential and spiritual, not situational. We cannot escape our own mind; it follows us wherever we go. We can’t outrun the treadmill. Our only hope at peace is to force ourselves to step off whenever we can. To learn again to be still.
— Chris Hayes, from “I Want Your Attention. I Need Your Attention. Here Is How I Mastered My Own.” (NY Times, January 3, 2025)
Notes:
I also painted a study of a seascape, nothing but a bit of sand, sea, sky, grey and lonely—sometimes I feel a need for that silence—where there’s nothing but the grey sea—with an occasional seabird. But otherwise, no other voice than the murmur of the waves.
— Vincent van Gogh, from a letter to his brother Theo, 17 September 1882 (via Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters)
Notes: DK Photo, 5:21 am. Saturday July 6, 2024. Quote via More Than Ideas.
The only difference between a lake with waves and a lake without waves is the wind. A lake would be calm except for the wind. We would be calm if not for our thinking. We can tell how much of a turbulent effect the wind has on the lake by the size and strength of the waves. We can tell how much effect our thinking is having on us by the size and strength of our feelings. The wind is invisible. We can only feel the effects of it. Most of the thinking that affects us is also invisible. Our feelings are the only thing that tells us something is amiss.
– Jack Pransky, Somebody Should Have Told Us!: Simple Truths for Living
Notes:
I’m going to ask you all to participate with me in this piece. This is going to be a communal meditation.
The poem ritual is about meditation. It’s about breathing. And it’s about seizing the day rather than worrying about tomorrow.
Today, you will. Today you choose. Today is yours. Today is only today, tomorrow ain’t here yet, so slow down.
I was interested in creating ritual because I live in Brooklyn, New York. And I rarely found a space quiet enough to meditate. And so this poem became a part of my meditation practice. And now it’s something that I do every day.
Breathe, for the homies that ain’t you, breathe, for the kin, that is. Breathe, for your own good skin, your skin, your smile, your you, you, you.
As someone who’s aware of her anxiety, the ritual became very crucial for me to just find a place to have deep breaths. And I think that it will offer that to the listeners as well.
Now come back. Come back. Come back to yourself.
I do say poetry is a transformative tool because I believe it allows us to use poetry as a mirror. And we can look very deeply and intently. We can study it without judgment and we can allow ourselves to grow from the things that we see versus the things that we thought we were seeing. Poetry allows us a step back, some distancing, and a lot of compassion.
Miraculous dark days, most fortunate sky be, beyond brilliant and be your resilience. But you do that already. Who told you any different, you tell them today you live and today you choose. Because tomorrow ain’t here yet, so slow down, slow down. Breathe .
— Mahogany L. Browne, “A Brief But Spectacular take on poetry as ritual” (PBS · Moe Sattar · September 30, 2023) Mahogany Browne is a poet, writer, organizer and educator. Recently, she became the first-ever poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center in New York City. She shares her Brief But Spectacular take on poetry as ritual.