The Connoisseur of Busy
I’ve never meditated a day in my life but suddenly I found myself thousands of miles from home sitting, legs crossed and eyes closed, in a mountain top hermitage in the ancient walled city of Assisi, Italy. The silence threatening to devour me.
I’ve been a Creative Director at a company called Universal Mind for over five years now and one of the hallmarks of being under their employ is a six week sabbatical after five years of employment. Seriously!
As the summer of my sabbatical grew closer my family and I were discussing our plans for this extended vacation. And at the very same time I had these recurring thoughts that I needed this to be a personal journey. So I began to explore this longing.
The word sabbatical (from Latin sabbaticus) has roots in the Hebrew language, shabbat or sabbath, which means a ceasing. And in ancient times the Sabbath Year (Sabbatical Year) or sheviit was a common practice related to the seven-year agriculture cycle mandated by the Torah for the land of Israel. It was a time when farmers literally let go of their daily practices in order for the land to repair itself, to rest. So I wrestled for awhile with the meaning of this ancient discipline of ceasing and what it all meant and how I was to apply this thinking to my own life.
Over the years I’ve somehow managed to cultivate this perverse addiction to a life of hurry becoming a self anointed connoisseur of busy.
A life ruled by the clock, dictated by the calendar, enslaved by the schedule. First in the office last to leave. In the messiness of this hurry I somehow managed to manipulate time to fit in more and more things into days that had no more time to offer. Hurrying from one thing to the next. Distracted by the noise as days turned into to months and months turned into years.
Everything that held weight of meaning in my life began to look blurry. My marriage was strong but somehow felt incredibly distant. My creativity becoming vapor amidst the haze. Clarity and purpose losing focus —everything drowning in this sea of hurry. I knew I was losing myself in the ebb and flow of the chaos. So many conversations vying for my attention I didn’t know what voice to listen to. My very own lost within the deep seduction of the sirens song. I felt my body shutting down holding at bay the impending disaster.
A life desperately trying to catch its breath.
So I invited my wife into the tension, this struggle between wanting to be with my family but also this deep longing to reset, repair, and rest.
Soon after I found myself thousands of miles from home sitting, legs crossed and eyes closed, in a mountain top hermitage in the ancient walled city of Assisi, Italy. The silence threatening to devour me yet the noise in my head proving to be deafening.
I stayed at a place called Alle Porte del Paradiso, The Gates of Paradise—a silent stay hermitage nestled in a sunflower drenched valley on the outskirts of Assisi. A place where visitors came for and embraced the discipline of meditation and silence. A place, I was soon to find out, where my demons hid in dark corners waiting for my arrival.
The taxi dropped me off at the entrance, this wooden archway entangled with vines, and immediately I had this feeling of awe and beauty and at the same time a sweeping sense that this is where my old self was coming to die. A dangerous notion when your ego convinces you that everything is just fine. Storm clouds gathering in the distance.
Within minutes of my first meditation I slowly opened one eye like a periscope searching for signs of life in a vast ocean of nothingness. The first thought surfacing amidst the wreckage — “what the hell am I doing here.”
The notion of “emptying ones mind” is simple in theory but difficult in practice. And as I sat there I had this overwhelming feeling that I’ve been spinning for so long that even in the utter stillness I felt like I was still moving. The theory of perpetual motion using my body against me in such a way that even to close my eyes and straighten my back seemed to throw off my balance. A constant reminder how disconnected I was to everything—even my own body.
Over time its not the physical act of meditation that one is concerned with rather its the lingering questions of what to do with the tangled mess that has gathered in your head. This cluttered build up from years of doing. Even if meditation is ultimately this emptying of ones mind its still a confrontation with the content.
So clever are the beasts to which we are bound.
It was several days before my demons, whom up until now were roaming freely in dark hidden corners, stepped into the hazy mist of light—all the while doing their best to sell me beautifully scripted versions of stories they called my own. Stories that stroked an ego that was desperately trying to hold on. Stories that threatened to dismantle the very reason for this trip. Stories with convincing notions to improvise my own ending, a resurrection without the experience of death. Ultimately the silence washed over me in billowing waves of confusion. A lost soul losing ground.
The first week went by with the constant thought of what the hell am I doing here becoming the rhythm within the silence. Clarity became the poster-child for those who could focus and apparently this meditation thing just wasn’t for me, or perhaps I was broken. The snicker of demons quietly pulling me under.
It wasn’t until the middle of the second week while reading Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline that I came across a quote by Carl Jung, “Hurry is not of the Devil; it is the devil.” Something immediately resonated deep within and suddenly I felt, quite literally, my thoughts beginning to slow down. And for the first time everything, all the conversations and noise, seemed meaningless and barren.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” -Socrates
It seems as though I’ve been nurturing a busy life for such a long time now that I had forgotten how to slow down. And for a creative individual busyness is the fastest way to destroy the imagination because it stifles the internal conversations we have within ourselves—those conversations that bridge the gap between the dreamer and the doer within us. Its within the lack of silence and the ever present disruption that only noise can bring that the dreamer slowly distances himself from these conversations.
“Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.” Cicero
So by the third week of my silent stay I could physically feel this immense release of tension and suddenly the noise from within the silence felt more like what it should be…silent! Now i’m not suggesting that I reached that “Zen” moment of clarity and awareness of which the Buddhist monks speak of but rather a place of peace and quiet that I’ve not felt in years. A ceasing that somehow felt oddly foreign yet comforting in its familiarity.
Silence and Creativity
We can look at almost every aspect of our lives and see how the discipline of silence will be a beneficial practice but being in a creative field I’ve outlined five reasons why creatives shouldn’t hesitate to purposefully search out the silent moments within the day.
- Silence is a catalyst for creating space for your imagination
- Silence brings a certain crispness to your focus
- Silence separates us from routines and patterns which gives us the ability to see things differently
- Ultimately silence disconnects us from the anxieties that subconsciously follow us throughout the day
- The very nature of silent meditation strips away complexities which leaves us in a place of utter stillness and simplicity. And for creatives simplicity should always be our goal
For those that have not entered into this kind of space before rest assured that there’s no right or wrong way to do this. Forms of meditation can be walking; biking; sitting at your desk with your eyes closed etc…This is your time and it doesn’t have to last long. Perhaps start with ten minutes a day just to get acclimated to the practice and when you feel like challenging yourself just increase your time.
If while meditating you find it difficult to concentrate just begin to center your thoughts on your breathing. In this way your connection with the mechanics of your body will begin to create a subtle pattern that becomes your center.
“Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together”. Thomas Carlyle
