While studying idea sex and the wonderful ways our exchanges with strangers better the world, I stumbled on Zat Rana's thoughts on nothingness and solitude in a Medium piece titled The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You.
Rana introduces the thoughts of mathematician Blaise Pascal, and, in particular, this quote: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
Amen, brother. It's Saturday and, like almost every weekend I spent with a bunch of free time, my mind is left to ramble.
As much as I like to sit on my couch and read or write, Rana and Pascal would note that I'm not quite alone. The world is more connected than it has ever been. And even though our connection and contributions to one another might possibly be the best thing for us as a species, we might equally need to step back as individuals and explore that void, that boredom, without one another and without distraction.
Like plenty of problems in life, they don't disappear when they're out of sight. Rana offers the straight-forward solution:
“The only way to avoid being ruined by this fear — like any fear — is to face it. It’s to let the boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self. That’s when you’ll hear yourself think, and that’s when you’ll learn to engage the parts of you that are masked by distraction.”
[...]
“You learn that there are other things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface. Just because a quiet room doesn’t scream with excitement like the idea of immersing yourself in a movie or a TV show doesn’t mean that there isn’t depth to explore there.”