Letting The Silence In

When was the last time you sat quietly with your thoughts?

By that I mean no television or internet, none of the multifarious (exponentially expanding) mobile phone gizmos, no headphones; not even any music.  No scrolling through endless pictures about other people’s lives and pets, or all of their holidays and the fabulous desserts which they simply have to photograph.  Just eat them and stop gloating, I say, while I nibble on my ‘Nice’ biscuit.

(Pronounced ‘niece’, and apparently invented in Victorian times, they were a favourite biscuit of Her Maj, Queen Victoria. But however quintessentially British they may be, they’re boring. The kiss of death to tastebuds everywhere. Unless you dip them in chocolate.)

I’m not against the vast and hilarious animal content online, and its healing, belly-laugh inducing boost to our collective mental health.  Pets of the world, you definitely make life worth living.  Without a doubt.  Even before all this global pandemonium you were cheering us up as we ‘worked from home’ (in our pyjamas), sitting on our laptops with all your insinuated auto erotic gymnastics, legs over shoulders and all that jazz, performing the sort of deep cleaning which seems entirely out of place on a keyboard. No-one needs to watch that level of intimacy and pseudo-exploration of carnal pleasures while we’re trying to finish a report.

Cats everywhere, I’m talking to you.  We reserve the right to ignore you.  Go and self-pleasure somewhere else.  We don’t need to see it; and sure, we all wish we were that flexible.  Don’t rub it in.

So, let’s get back to being with our thoughts.  Stone-cold sober, awake, and with no mind altering substances, prescription or recreational.  No place to be, no eyes on the clock, just some open-ended Me-Time.  And as it happens, not so difficult in this current climate of self-isolation and non-essential chocolate biscuits.

Quite a bit of navel gazing going down at the moment I’d imagine.

Why not see where your mind saunters-off-to when given free-rein.  The path it takes while you’re sitting comfortably.  Just a clear head and You, and whatever drops into your frontal cortex, that sub-cranial mental gym in which we can exercise our imagination.

Just beneath the skull there’s a mass of neurons which is wholly unique to yourself.  The Encyclopaedia of You.  Imagine that.  And here’s your chance to tap into it, that huge storage unit of ideas, amongst the things you might have offloaded for a while, and kind of forgotten about.  That mass of cabling you shoved into one of the high cupboards of your mind.  The incredible colours which you rarely use now.  All of it like the untapped potential of an overflowing shed.

What will you make?

This is the year everyone will want to forget.  Ground zero.  No amount of toilet roll is likely to help you with the inevitable shitstorm bearing down on us.

Now we have BCV and ACV.  Before, and after, coronavirus.  Nothing has touched us like this for the last 100 years.  Sports and social events cancelled.  Venues closed.  Our daily lives funnelled into a sort of voluntary incarceration.

Beamed-up out of our busy lives, we’re suddenly being offered all this Time.  Something we didn’t seek, a gift we can’t return.  No-one knows enough about the ‘after’ yet, or how long it’ll last, but there’s plenty we can do while we wait.

How about making it a year to remember by taking the isolation and running with it?

Away from the noise of the world and all of our usual routines, we can take a moment. Listen to the silence.  Use the time wisely.

I regularly hear people say, I can’t remember when I last read a book.  Or, I don’t read books.  Or I don’t have time to read.  Phrases which all make my heart ache a little.

How many other things do we consign to the pile of abandoned pursuits and forgotten dreams?

So I’ll ask again, when was the last time you sat quietly with your thoughts?  You know, BYO brain.  No frills.  No fancy tablecloth or anything.  Feeling the sun on your face and the wind in your hair, listening to the breathing world.  Being amazed at the star filled night, and the warm blush of a rising sun.  Not feeling the need to capture it for your Facebook page.  Just loving it, in that moment, right up to the edges.

In fact what are you doing reading this? Go and create.  See what floats to you out of the blue.

Use that brain well.  Every sulcus and gyrus, every lobe and pole.  Let it rove.  Take down the walls and fences.  Solve problems.  Make music.  Create stuff.

Innovation.  Invention.  Imagination.

And You.

That’s when the magic happens.