A Field Guide to Feelings
Seeking Stillness
The elusive feeling that everything’s OK.
Most feelings seem like wild carnivores that ambush you, jump out of the bushes, seize you in their jaws, carry you off, and consume you till there’s nothing left. Stillness is not like that. Stillness is like a rare flower, easily overlooked; but, if you find it, you’ll want to collect and grow it in your garden.
By stillness I mean serenity, equanimity, calmness, tranquility, peace, quiet, repose. It’s the opposite of agitation, hyperactivity, hypervigilance, spastic, crazy, hectic, chaotic, nervous, excitable, frenetic, and troubled. The Greeks called it hesychia; the Buddhists, upekkha; Hindus, samatvam, and the Arabs, aslama, related to the name of their religion, Islam. It’s cherished by everyone almost as much as it’s avoided.
Correction, I don’t think stillness, per se, is avoided. Simplicity and inactivity are; but simplicity and inactivity are often the path to stillness. You might be afraid of simplicity and inactivity if you believe you always need to be productive and have an answer to everything; or if you don’t want to listen to your relentless thoughts that just get louder when you’re not busy. No, we value stillness; we just don’t know how to get it.
