
Spaces Between Thoughts
The French philosopher Descartes famously proclaimed, “I think, therefore I am”, casting light on the notion that he could not doubt his existence, as he was the one doing the doubting in the first place (italics mine). I don’t, in this ‘thought’ piece, want to delve too deep into the history of thought, for it could require pages to run through, and a long time to wrap our heads around. I just want to stimulate your mind around the warm idea, the burgeoning concept, the oft-ignored construct, and the age-old wisdom of these pockets of granular yet profound periods of time between two successive, interrelated, or unrelated thoughts arising in our waking minds.
Our lives today — as we feel it, and as has been saturated to death by the self-development and medical industries — are inundated by an unending barrage of media messages, social media notifications, and advertising agencies spending billions of dollars vying for three seconds of our conscious attention, in a drive to turn a fat profit, and start the entire process all over again. We receive, according to some estimates, over 1,000 bits of information to process, per day, through various forms of media.
Our ancestors in the savannah had no TV screens to stare at, no Netflix shows to binge-watch, no Facebook FarmVille invites from their aunt living on another continent, and no Instagram ‘explore’ buttons to refresh ad infinitum. These are brand new activities that our highly flexible and gullible human minds are continuously engaging with, and they’ve been around for no longer than half a century (ubiquitously).
Our modern human brain, in contrast, with its hardwired set of emotions, feelings, and primitive thoughts in response to the physical stimuli in the world around us, has been around for about 2–300,000 of our earthly years.
In the tiny and intimate tribes in which they subsisted, our forefathers banded together in communion with a different set of daily struggles, such as constantly exhibiting loyalty to their tribe, eating meals together for social bonding, hunting game in groups, rearing their offspring to the best of their ability, and waking up to collectively survive another day in disease-laden environments. It is this same and endless stream of thoughts that also served them, protecting them from becoming prey to a sabre-tooth tiger outside their clay or mud huts, or being murdered for dissent, and in vengeance, by their next door neighbour. In other words, all of the myriad forms of drudgery our ancestors embraced had to do with real-world, flesh-and-blood interaction and exchange. This daily grind with continuous human presence undoubtedly created a heavy baggage of ‘thoughts’ that unconsciously exhausted them, looping in circles unhindered in their untrained minds.
Here’s the less illuminated fact, though — that baggage of ‘thoughts in response to the physical world’ persists to this day, in your mind, and mine, albeit in alterations to our realities thousands of years later. In 2019, across most cultures, we’re required to live under the governance and guidance of certain laws, norms, customs and traditions. These boundaries, written and unwritten, implied and stated, ask of us certain attitudes, behaviours and actions that comply with an overall portrait of being a conforming member of the specific society we inhabit. Examples include, but are not limited to (and are definitely not the rule) —
- Being hardworking and high-performing at school.
- Making friends and social connections with peers.
- Finding our space in the world when we hurtle ourselves into university with a cohort of previously unknowns.
- Resting our head and heart on a career that generates intrinsic joy, simultaneously appeals to a certain social standing, and capacitates us to cover not just our bills, but provide and often display a life of relative comfort, convenience and luxury.
- Spotting a life partner, wooing them, navigating the intricate and delicate pathway to and through a mutually beneficial and legally binding contract of togetherness, a.k.a., marriage.
- Ensuring, on a daily basis, the maintenance, cultivation and growth of that marriage, such that it serves both the parties involved in a positive and nourishing manner.
- Planning for, educating, nurturing, encouraging, being present for, and raising kids, in a way that encodes the certainty that they’re brought up to be humble, modest, compassionate, kind and successful.
- Working to ensure the continuing success of our career, such that we stack enough for our twilight years along the way.
- Being available or caring for our ailing or ageing parents, to know that they lived their last years maximising their joy and satisfaction while minimising their regret and/or despair.
- Accepting the mortality of life, and as a precursor, embracing the diminishing of physical energy as we climb into our 40s, 50s, and beyond.
- Looking back at the years gone by and dampening thoughts of the deeds, projects and events that we could have been a part of, but weren’t.
- Knowing in our last decade or two, that due to a gradual dip in our energy, we cannot be as mobile as we once were, and that the younger generations may not see much value in hanging around their relatively slower grandmother or grandfather — the generation gap problem.
I’m most certainly not suggesting that this is the exact blueprint of life that everyone journeys through. I’m also not claiming a perfect description of each of the various stages of life that I’ve casually noted above. But I am fairly certain that most, if not all of us, experience a variation of a majority of the aforementioned layers of life’s chapters.
And so, the incoming data we nurse from the virtual world from the crack of dawn to lights-out, coupled with the ongoings in our comparatively limited but very complex physical worlds, invariably gives rise to a gigantic bubble of cyclical thought patterns, some of which are sequential, some of which are unrelated, and some of which are complete figments of our precious imaginations. We are constantly absorbed by our subjective thought processes, for good or for ill, and this can oftentimes direct us straight towards burnout at a rate of depreciation quicker than we’re willing to accept. This expanding bubble of thoughts can weigh even the brightest, smartest, most enlightened of us down, because whether we like it or not, we must self-admittedly be open to the fact that we’re almost always trying to make the best (or good) decisions in our daily lives, based on all the points of data we’re provided by our fast-paced environments in the physical and digital worlds. This can be exhausting work, can be challenging to upkeep, and is liable to reduce the quality of our decisions if we’re driven to overwork the brain networks pushing hard to process and assimilate all of the information they’re fed.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), however, thoughts are unavoidable, and if you think you can escape the vicious or virtuous cycle of repeated thoughts holding you prey from cradle to grave, I wish you all the metaphorical luck in your own fabricated world, for it is, empirically, inescapable.
But this life of a prisoner-to-our-own-thoughts doesn’t have to be the only way of living our hundred-or-so years, so long as we’re willing to adopt an activity that allows us to dip our toes in the initially elusive, but eventually accessible spaces between thoughts.
What are these spaces between thoughts?
What benefits can the pursuit of these spaces confer upon the devout practitioner?
And how can we regularly access them with increasing ease?
You see, between two back-to-back, connected thoughts, there lies a tiny, invisible, ethereal slot of time — I’m unsure of the exact number — that rests between the respective subjects of the two thoughts running through our mental real-estate. As an analogy, think of a pristine valley nestled between two mountains — the mountains representing our two thoughts. Upon zooming in, this lush valley is vast open space with serene vistas and unlimited possibilities that haven’t seen the light of day for the majority of us. But they do exist for all of us, yearning to be tapped.
The valley depicts and promises stillness, conscious detachment, observation, calmness, restfulness, a vacuum of silence, an alertness, a neutral point of view, a steadiness, a centred state, a balanced state, an objective and unbiased stance, a sensitivity to our bodily sensations, enhanced empathy towards all sentient beings around us, boosted creativity, and a state of blissful ecstasy. This is what describes the possibilities embodied in the spaces between thoughts. And the list is non-exhaustive.
The benefits of acquiring the ability to soak ourselves in these still, placid spaces has been the preserve and open-secret of countless high-achieving, high-impact people across industries and throughout the timeline of human history. Living examples include Russell Simmons, the hip-hop mogul, Jerry Seinfeld, the class-act comedian, Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge-fund manager and investor, Oprah Winfrey, the talk show host, Sir Paul McCartney, a member of The Beatles, LeBron James, basketball’s living legend, Clint Eastwood, the iconic American actor, Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, and innumerable other influencers ranging from the fields of commerce and business to the arts, humanities, and philanthropy.
How did all these astonishing people access that wide open landscape of emptiness between two thoughts, such that instead of being engulfed wholly by their thoughts and the linked emotions, they adopted, through regular practice of purposeful detachment, the ability to recognise a sharp distinction between themselves and their fluid thoughts? This distinction helped them take a step back from the pervasive dog-eat-dog world of highly competitive races to do great things, rationally analyse their current place in life and their impending personal and professional decisions, and adjust or refine their inner compass more effectively towards the path they wished to tread.
Doing even one of these activities can lead to the excavation of a dormant and deep inner world within each of us, one replete with peace and joy. But it can also lead to astounding greatness of character, easier achievement of worldly, glossy goals, and compassion towards what needs to be done for the betterment of this world.
Pick any one of the following activities, stick with it for 30 days, and observe for yourself the implicit and explicit changes in your experience of life’s daily hustle —
- Breathe. No, this doesn’t necessarily require you to sit in a lotus position with scented candles. It can be done bang in the middle of your drive to work, or while walking to the restroom from your office desk. Just pay attention to your breath. Inhalation, exhalation. Be aware of it oxygenating your system. Do it everyday, as often as you ‘think’ of it. Routinise it.
- Take a daily 10-minute walk in a park or anywhere you can. Switch your smart-device to silent mode, or better yet, leave it behind. Just walk and introspect aspects of your life. We came from nature. It wouldn’t hurt to be a part of it for short periods daily. People who grasped this immensely include Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Dickens and Albert Einstein.
- Listen to soft music in isolation. Slot 10–15 minutes in to pointedly enjoy relaxing music of your choice. Let the chords, symphonies and voices bathe your senses. That’s what the creator of the song wants. Let her do her magic. Let her do it everyday. Every single day. Close your eyes.
- Locate a spot in the city or your home that you love, and where you can aimlessly sit secluded from other people. Make the effort and go sit there for 10–15 minutes everyday. Have no agenda while you’re there. New neural connections could be formed in your cranium that would’ve eluded you otherwise.
- Journalling. Paper, ink and an open mind. Ten lines of what your day was about, everyday. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t even need to be half that. It just has to be. This literally shouldn’t take you more than 3 minutes. It’ll help you restore, refresh and reflect. That last word can change lives.
- Drinking tea. Morning or evening, sit and just enjoy a cup of your favourite tea. Flip your phone on silent, stare out into the abyss, and simply relish the aroma and flavour of the tea. Think about its essence. How does it make you feel?
Added to all of the above, we have the usual suspects — transcendental meditation, yoga, long treks, vipassana, exercise, cold showers, etc. Though most of these can be done in groups of people, one is essentially performing them by engaging nothing but their own cognitive and physical energy, and doing any one of these perfectly natural activities in a disciplined fashion opens doors to stillness, calmness and perspective that can profoundly change the quality of our lives, and by extension, the lives of those around us.
Yes, this wisdom has been written off, on many occasions, as ‘spiritual’, as highly esoteric, or largely woo-woo, but that doesn’t discredit its scientific and potent impact on the human body and psyche. None of the six activities I’ve listed above are difficult to perform, nor do they suggest allegiance to any specific religion or brainwashing doctrine. They’re merely toe-holds into the mystical arena of mindfulness for us dummies, and I invite each of you to select your favourite pick, and join me in cozying up to the magical ‘spaces between thoughts’.
